Journalists in Africa: navigating 2012

Journalists in Africa: navigating 2012

05 January, 2012 | By THERESA MALLINSON
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Journalism isn't a profession you get into if you want an
easy ride. This has certainly proven true for journalists
covering Africa in 2011, many of whom paid with their lives.
Challenges in 2012 include covering ongoing conflict zones,
election periods, and continuing the fight for access to
information

As another new

year rolls around,

it's back to the

grindstone – for the

employed among

us anyway. But for

some people

returning to work

the stakes are

higher than others.

There are the obvious jobs that involve occupational hazards:
soldier, policeman, spy, to name just a few. You can add
“journalist” to that list. Journalists in Africa (and throughout the
world) increasingly risk censure, intimidation, jail time, and even
being killed – simply for doing their jobs.

2011 was a turbulent year for Africa's journalists – and not all of
them escaped with their lives. According to research by the
Committee to Protect Journalists, 12 journalists in Africa were
killed last year: five in Libya, including Anton Hammerl; two in
Egypt; two in Somalia; and one in each of Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire,
and Tunisia. In addition, three media workers were killed: in
Somalia, Libya, and Côte d'Ivoire. And the true figure could well
be higher. CPJ only includes in its tally journalists who have been
killed in cross fire, while covering dangerous stories, or
deliberately taken out as a result of their work, and the
organisation is currently investigating the deaths of three more
journalists – Charles Ingabire in Uganda; and two others in the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.

For those journalists who manage to navigate their way through
covering conflict zones and reporting on matters their governments
would rather keep secret, life isn't easy. On 10 December 2011,
again according to CPJ research, 52 African journalists were in
jail, most of them on trumped-up charges. Of these, no fewer than
28 are held in Eritrea. In South Africa, there are currently no
journalists behind bars. But we could be looking at a very different
situation in the near future should the Protection of State
Information Bill be finally passed into law.

So what does 2012 hold for the journalists of Africa? It goes
without saying that war zones like Somalia are going to be
dangerous to cover for the foreseeable future; with no government
to speak of, members of the media have little recourse to law and
order to protect them. Staying in the horn of Africa, regimes like
Isais Afewerki's in Eritrea and Menas Zenawi's in Ethiopia have
long treated journalists as pariahs, simply throwing critical voices
in jail. That doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon.

In late December Ethiopia handed down an 11-year prison
sentence to two Swedish journalists, Johan Persson and Martin
Schibbye, who were found guilty under the country's harsh anti-
terrorism law. There was much international opposition to the two
journalists' original arrest and subsequent court case, and Ethiopia
is sending a clear message to the world that it has no respect for
human rights, let alone those of journalists.

Looking north, of the Arab Spring countries, only Tunisia has
succeeded thus far in re-establishing some sort of order. The
Libyans still have some way to go before they hold elections, and
the national transitional council's hold on the country is weak. The
priority is stopping the country from descending into civil war, and
it too will remain a dangerous country for journalists to work in.
Across the border in Egypt, blogger-activist Alaa Abd El Fattah
was released in late December, although fellow blogger Maikel
Nabil still remains behind bars, serving a two-year sentence after
daring to criticise the military council that currently runs the
country. With the ongoing elections in Egypt, a resurgence in
street-level protests, and anger at the way the military is using
Mubarak-era tactics to silence dissenters, more intimidation and
arrests of journalists seems a certainty.

The revolutions in North Africa, incomplete though they still are,
have seemingly not taught dictators in sub-Saharan Africa any
lessons. Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi may all
be gone, but rather than cede power, their sub-Saharan
counterparts attempt to cling to it ever more strongly. Let's take
Zimbabwe and Uncle Bob as an example. In early 2011, 45
Zimbabweans were thrown in jail – simply for daring to watch
video footage of the Egyptian revolution. Zimbabwe looks likely
to hold elections in 2012 (admittedly, we thought that about 2011
too), although a date is yet to be determined. President Robert
Mugabe's hostility towards the media – always ratcheted up a
notch or three at election time – is well known. Rather than the
elections being a time when the citizens of Zimbabwe are
empowered to make their own choice, it is quite probable that the
country will again be gripped by fear, as happened in 2008. In
which case, journalists will no doubt be perceived as a problem
for trying to report freely and fairly.

So what's the good news? Over the last decade press freedom
and freedom of expression in Africa, and across the globe, as
been in steady decline. But, at the same time, there's a growing
awareness of the importance of protecting this freedom – and its
flip side, access to information. As governments across the
continent continue to crack down on the media, the best solution
is to keep on speaking the truth to power. In South Africa
certainly, 2011 was the year when journalists and concerned
citizens woke up to the growing threat of the Protection of State
Information Bill – and decided to do something about it. DM

Courtesy