Silencing the media is the regime�s plan
Mmegi Editor | Friday May 8, 2015 12:46
This draconian act comes after the paper published an investigative story this week linking Zambian national Jerry Chitube to illegal activities with the notorious Directorate on Intelligence and Security (DIS) and the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). It boggles the mind that instead of running after the alleged perpetrators of corruption the DCEC has now decided to persecute the journalists for exposing the rot. How sad! But then we cannot be puzzled by DCEC act of barbarism. It is a state agency after all. For it has become a norm under the current regime to harass and arrest the journalists. Just a few months back, in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, the notorious state agents arrested Sunday Standard editor Outsa Mokone, charging him with Sedition. On the eve of the arrest, the newspaper senior reporter Edgar Tsimane was forced to flee the country and sought asylum in neighbouring South Africa.
The harassment of journalists by the government goes beyond the arrests and physical intimidation. Recently the government imposed an advertising ban allegedly targeting news organisations that are deemed too critical of this hyper sensitive government.
We cannot therefore be faulted for thinking that the Ian Khama regime has a plan. A wicked plan! The plan is to silence the media and close news organisations deemed too critical of the government. The plan is to intimidate the media into submission. A plan not only to censor the media but also force journalists into self-censorship. Sadly as the executive arm of the government fight it out with the media, the rest are mere spectators. The legislature, an elected organ of governance is silent. What an astonishing silence. No laws to protect the work of journalists are before Parliament. Freedom of Information and whistleblowers protection laws remain a mirage. No motions and questions were put before Parliament to question the basis of some of the anti-press decisions by the government. Instead, the media in Botswana is forced to work under trying conditions of laws that impede freedom of expression, including but not limited to the National Security Act, the penal code with its varied sections as the Sedition one, and the 2008 Media Practitioners Act.
The press is not perfect, it has erred in the past and it will continue to do so in future. The question however is, for all its wrongs, is it fair to treat journalists as filthy criminals? No. Journalists are no criminals; there are professionals that deserve respect. Those who fail to give journalists respect are cowards who fear scrutiny.
The result of this harassment has far reaching implications for this country. We call upon the regime to let journalists do their work in peace.
Today’s thought
“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air”
-Henry Anatole Grunwald