News outlets across Africa are coming under increasing pressure that restricts their abilities and need defence and support to ensure viability and relevance, media officials said on Tuesday.
Speaking in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, at a pan-African conference on the press, they called for a continent-wide review of how governments and institutions deal with the fourth estate to protect freedom of speech and expression.
”Institutions or councils on human rights should review situations in each country on how the media should be handled,” said Mohamed Sahnoun, an adviser to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan who works with the UN-affiliated University for Peace.
”If the media are not protected, then human rights organisations can suggest sanctions against that government,” he said on the sidelines of the three-day conference.
In his opening remarks to the meeting, dubbed Africa’s News Media: The Vision, The Need and Responsibility, Sahnoun said African media in general face challenges, particularly in dealing with conflict.
”Nothing is more damaging to the growth and future prosperity of Africa than conflict, of which there have been horrific examples in recent years,” he said, lamenting the role some media have played in such conditions, notably the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
”We have seen in Rwanda the media can be terribly destructive in playing on ethnic differences and promoting hatred and violence,” Sahnoun said.
Kenya’s Nation Media Group (NMG) chief Wilfred Kiboro said African media also face challenges such as draconian press laws and harassment, legal or otherwise, in many countries.
”Despite progress in press freedom, in some countries where media is still oppressed … they are now seen as isolated cases not only by the international community, but also by African media,” he said. ”This is a tragedy.”
Kiboro listed Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, The Gambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Somalia as the worst offenders of press freedom. — Sapa-AFP