RIGHTS-AFRICA: Press Freedom in the Spotlight

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, May 23 2005 (IPS) - The International Press Institute kicked off its 54th general assembly Sunday, in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

About 400 delegates from around the world are attending the three-day meeting, where the troubled state of press freedom is coming under consideration. The International Press Institute (IPI) is a Vienna-based network of journalists, editors and other media workers which lobbies for greater press freedom and the improvement of journalistic standards, amongst other matters.

“Press freedom is being undermined by governments, and this is a dangerous signal,” said IPI Director Johann Fritz.

Assaults on media freedom have taken place through the use of draconian regulations to curb the activities of reporters. Increasingly, journalists also find themselves in the firing line: according to IPI, 25 reporters have already been killed this year in the course of their work. Last year 78 were killed, compared to 64 in 2003 and 54 in 2002.

In a speech to mark the start of the conference, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said his government was committed to ensuring press freedom.

“We have an ongoing debate on building consensus on an appropriate legal framework that protects…freedom of the press, while at the same time establishing necessary safeguards to ensure that the freedoms are exercised responsibly for the good of the press and the general public,” he told delegates.

However, recent events in Kenya have prompted observers to take a less rosy view of the media situation in this East African country – notably the assault on a cameraman by first lady Lucy Kibaki earlier this month.

Ironically, the incident took place on the eve of World Press Freedom Day (May 3). Mrs Kibaki was apparently protesting against media coverage of her family that she viewed as unfair.

Last year, civil servants were also barred from releasing certain government information to the press after it published reports about apparent graft in the administration. Cabinet ministers were implicated in a scandal involving the allocation of a multi-million-dollar contract for the supply of passport printing equipment, and the construction of a forensic laboratory, to a dubious foreign company.

In April 2005, Freedom House rated the media situation in Kenya as “not free”, whereas it was described as “partly free” last year. Freedom House is a U.S-based organisation that monitors press freedom in various countries.

Nigeria has also received attention at the IPI assembly. In a paper presented on his behalf, Wole Soyinka – one of the country’s leading activists and a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature – recounted how journalists were harassed and tortured during the regime of the late military ruler Sani Abacha.

However, he noted further that African journalists needed to be more vocal in their condemnation of media repression on the continent.

For his part, Rwandan President Paul Kagame accused the international media of focusing too intently on negative developments across the continent.

“One of the reasons why Africa has not been able to attract foreign direct investment is because of the constant negative reporting especially by this media,” he said in a paper entitled ‘Reporting of Africa by Western Media’.

As an example of this alleged bias, Kagame pointed to the fact that far more coverage was given to Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, than to the country’s efforts to rebuild itself during the decade that followed. Upwards of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus lost their lives in the killing spree.

“We are now showing the world that we have the will and resolve to emerge from the ashes…We have resettled and repatriated close to four million refugees in Rwanda,” he noted. “Unfortunately, this is material that the eyes of the western media do not see."