MISA has attacked Swaziland’s new anti-media government bill as unconstitutional and an attempt to muzzle the media.
The Media Commission Bill is an attempt to take Swaziland back to the dark ages, it says.
MISA (the Media Institute of Southern Africa) Swaziland Chapter says that the new bill that purports to be a defence of journalistic ethical standards is unnecessary because media houses in the kingdom have been in lengthy discussions on finding ways to introduce self-regulation.
As it introduced the new bill the government also said it would be scrapping five of the six media bills it drafted in 2007 that have been widely discussed by stakeholders.
The Media Commission Bill will set up a statutory Media Council to oversee the media in Swaziland.
MISA says this is ‘process is taking us back to the dark and oppressive regimes’ of the past and the bill is designed to ‘muzzle the media and exert undue control on matters of freedom of expression’.
MISA says media houses in Swaziland have already made it clear to the government that any statutory media council will not be acceptable.
MISA says the new bill contravenes S24 of the Swaziland Constitution on freedom of expression and contradicts the order of Parliament on self-regulation made in 1997.
I wonder sometimes who King Mswati III thinks he’s kidding. And I’d say much the same about Barnabas Dlamini,the man the king illegally-appointed as prime minister of Swaziland.
For two days this past week the ruling elite in Swaziland has been engaged in what it likes to call a ‘Smart partnership’. In theory everyone who wanted to came together to discuss openly (without fear or favour etc) what ails Swaziland and what can be done about its problems.
The Weekend Observer, a paper in effect owned by King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, led the cheers for the king and the prime minister yesterday (15 August 2009). Reporting on what a huge success the Smart Partnership was it told us also that the king and Dlamini were leading Swaziland to a bright future.
In particular the Observer pointed to the ‘gem’ that is the Swaziland National Development Strategy National Vision 2022. Don’t hold your breath but these two fellows are going to put Swaziland in the top 10 percent of nations in the world when it comes to ‘human development’ in terms of sustainable development, social justice and political stability.
They’d better gets their skates on if they’re going to meet the 2022 deadline.
A report out last month looking at Swaziland over the past year highlighted just how much work still needs to be done. Freedom House in its annual Freedom in the World report gave Swaziland five out of ten for civil liberties and declared that the kingdom was ‘not free’.
‘King Mswati III is an absolute monarch with ultimate authority over the cabinet, legislature, and judiciary,’ it reported.
It went on to state that political parties are banned; corruption is a major problem (Swaziland was ranked 72 out of 180 countries surveyed in Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index); freedom of expression is severely restricted in practice, especially regarding political issues or the royal family; the government has restricted freedoms of assembly and association, and permission to hold political gatherings has often been denied; government pressure – including the repeated arrest of Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions leader Jan Sithole – has greatly limited union operations; and there were numerous incidents of police torture, beatings, and suspicious deaths in custody.
Of course the king and his illegal government have no intention of improving the ‘human development’ of Swaziland. They are the problem, not the solution. And that’s why so many in Swaziland decided to boycott the Smart Partnership and leave the king and his cronies to talk to themselves.
Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2009 – Swaziland report is available here.
The Suppression of Terrorism Act (STA), which was signed into law in August 2008, gravely threatens freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, rights which were already compromised under Swaziland’s legal system. The new law’s sweeping and imprecise provisions render a wide range of organizations and individuals who are critical of the government potentially open to prosecution.
These are the opening words to a damning report just publishedinto the way Swaziland’s STA has been used as a brutal tool against democrats in the kingdom.
In a detailed analysis of the STA, Amnesty International states, ‘A number of provisions in the STA are sweeping and imprecise while the penalties for breaches are severe. The definition of a “terrorist act” in the STA is not limited to the threatened or actual use of violence or to acts committed in pursuit of an underlying political or ideological goal. In addition, many key provisions of the STA rely on the Act’s definition of “terrorist act”, so that the breadth and vagueness of that definition also renders them excessively broad in their effects.
‘The STA gives the government wide discretion to declare an organization a “terrorist group”. The law limits the role of the courts in reviewing such decisions, and effectively requires the organization to persuade the court that the government’s decision was “not reasonable”.
‘Being designated a “terrorist group” by the government carries grave consequences. Not only is the property of the group subject to seizure and forfeiture, but membership of the group also becomes a criminal offence. Other organizations and individuals who have virtually any kind of contact with the group risk being caught up in very broadly defined criminal offences.
‘For example, “giving support” is an offence, even where the support is unrelated to any particular “terrorist act”. As all such offences are defined by the STA as “terrorist acts”, the range of people potentially liable to criminal prosecution is virtually unlimited.’
Amnesty reports that police harassment of civil society organizations has increased since the STA came into force, ‘with organizations reporting more surveillance, including monitoring of their emails and telephone calls.
‘The police have sometimes insisted on being present at closed civil society meetings, which has led to meetings being cancelled out of concern for the security of participants. The authorities have prevented some marches from going ahead.’
King Mswati is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch and despite a constitution published in 2005, the king has a firm hand on Swaziland, selecting the prime minister and the cabinet. All political parties are banned and the king makes all the important decisions. He and his government regularly ignore the provisions of the constitution.
According to a report in the Times Sunday today,Nkhambule, a former Swaziland Government cabinet minister and present chair of the Inhlava Forum political party was told he was expelled from the regiment at a meeting that lasted two minutes. He was also fined one cow.
Nkhambule said he would probably appeal the decision.
He told the Times Sunday, ‘"I will also continue writing my column in the Times of Swaziland.
‘I intend to fight this issue to the last pint of my blood. Submitting to their ruling would mean that being a Swazi is determined by them, when in actual fact that is not the case. I am a Swazi by birth; no one determines my nationality or cultural activities in which I take part.’
In a separate development, Nkhambule has been stopped from preaching at the church known as World Solutions Ministries.
Swazi dissident Mfomfo Nkhambule has formed his own cabinet of ministers to oppose the undemocratic government of Swaziland.
Nkhambule, who is under threat of banishment from his homeland or a spell in jail for criticising Swaziland’s King Mswati III,said he wanted to topple the present government.
Nkhambule, a former Swazi Government cabinet minister and present chair of Inhlava, said he wanted to force a change in the Swaziland Constitution to allow for a new democratic parliament.
At present, all political parties are banned and parliament is in effect controlled by King Mswati, the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa.
In an interview in the Times of Swaziland published today(16 March 2009), Nkhambule said Inhlava would topple the government ‘gradually’.
‘We will first have a structure of a cabinet within the organisation. People will have to monitor our progress, and when they gain confidence with our way of governance – we will then take over.’
He declined to name the 16 people who would form the new cabinet.
According to the Times, when asked what would happen to King Mswati when they took over, Nkhambule said the king could be given certain powers, but most would rest on the government of the day.
‘He will not be stripped of his title as he will remain the king, but play a different role,’ he said.
Writing in his regular Monday column in the Times today,Nkhambule continued to criticise the role of King Mswati in Swaziland.
He wrote, ‘Do not forget that whoever gets appointed into Parliament or elected into Parliament is appointed primarily to serve the interests of the king and those who are close to the king. There is nobody in Parliament to serve the interests of the majority because there is no majority in Swaziland.
‘The Parliament is His Majesty’s Parliament and so is the judiciary and the cabinet. Do not expect any MP to see anything wrong with what is done by those that are in the corridors of power.’
He added, ‘Those that have eyes to see and brains to think big, know that the present political set-up is not in any way meant to address any of our concerns but those of the king.’
The latest move from Nkhambule may be seen as an act of treason in Swaziland. Already he has been hauled before Swaziland Police’s Intelligence Unitand threatened with 20 years in jail if he continued to write newspaper articles that were critical of the king.
