South African President Thabo on Monday noted a worrying trend of jailing journalists in Africa as leaders try to balance sometimes competing interests of press and governments, especially in young democracies.
While acknowledging difficulties journalists working in Africa face, Mbeki also urged them to report accurately on the region and to do so in a ”properly contextualised” manner.
”There are some countries on our continent where journalists are in prison and this is worrying for all of us,” Mbeki told delegates at the 60th World Newspaper Congress and the 14th World Editors’ Forum in Cape Town.
African countries consistently appear on media groups offenders’ lists, notably countries like South Africa’s neighbour Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has shut down independent media.
Two African countries — Equatorial Guinea and Libya — are among the top five on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ global list of most-censored countries.
The press freedom watchdog has also counted two African countries — Eritrea and Ethiopia — among the top four of 24 countries that imprisoned journalists in 2006.
In a widely condemned incident, Kenyan police last year swooped on a local private television station and shut it down, denting Kenya’s reputation for press freedom.
Mbeki noted the concern such cases generate but said they may be simply be growing pains of Africa’s emerging democracies.
”There is particular anger around what is seen as impunity enjoyed by some governments in their perceived or actual actions against journalists and editors,” he said.
”I am also aware of the feeling of African editors that libel and similar laws are used to deal with a media that is seen as uncomplimentary to the authorities.”
He said efforts were under way between the African Union and the African Editors’ Forum to deepen the understanding of the role the media in democracy.
Mbeki’s government has itself come under attack over perceptions that it wants to curb media freedom in one of Africa’s most respected democracies.
Earlier this year, opposition parties and the media thwarted a proposed law that would have required media outlets to have controversial material like sex and violence vetted by a state board.
Mbeki’s own relationship with the media in his country has at times been fraught. He has often accused white journalists, along with other critics that focus of South Africa’s high levels of crime and government corruption, of being racist. — Reuters