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Mbeki: Press jailings worrying
04/06/2007 21:19 - (SA)
Cape Town - South African President Thabo noted on Monday a worrying trend of jailing journalists in Africa as leaders try to balance competing interests of press freedom and governance, especially in young democracies.
While acknowledging difficulties faced by journalists working in Africa, 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.
Press freedom watchdog
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 also has 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 generated, but said they might simply be growing pains of Africa's emerging democracies.
He said: "There is particular anger around what is seen as impunity enjoyed by some governments in their perceived, or actual, actions against journalists and editors.
"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 of the media in democracy.
Mbeki's government itself has come under attack about perceptions that it wants to curb media freedom in one of Africa's most-respected democracies.
Fraught relationship
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 been fraught at times.
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.
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