DANGER: SWAZI GOVERNMENT CENSORS

Swaziland’s government wants to choose which journalists should be allowed to cover proceedings in Parliament and which should not.

The move follows criticism that the editor of the Times Sunday was ignorant of Parliamentary procedures.

The decision to require journalists who cover Parliament to be accredited was announced as part of a House of Assembly Select Committee report into the behaviour of Mbongeni Mbingo.

Mbingo was charged with contempt of parliament following an article criticising the House Speaker that Mbingo wrote in the Times Sunday newspaper.

In its report published this week the Select Committee found Mbingo not guilty of contempt of Parliament and in an unprecedented move, confirmed his right to freedom of speech.

But the committee found that Mbingo lacked basic understanding of Parliamentary practice and procedure.

The committee also said he had failed to observe journalism ethics of objectivity and accuracy.

The committee further recommended that journalists should attend workshops on the importance of ethics in journalism.

We should applaud the committee for seeing sense in dismissing charges of contempt against Mbingo and regular readers of this blog will know that the Swazi media continually fails to uphold journalism ethics, so it is difficult to argue against the committee’s recommendation for a workshop.

We should, however, be suspicious of the motives behind accreditation of journalists who cover Parliament. What accreditation means is that only some journalists will be allowed to observe and report on what goes on in Parliament. The Swazi government (or its representatives) will decide who is and who is not allowed into Parliament.

It also means they can decide to withdraw accreditation from anyone whose reporting upsets them. We should remember that the Select Committee sat and judged Mbingo because MPs were angry about what he had written. If accreditation had been in place the angry MPs could have found it easier to punish him. They simply had to remove his accreditation and he could no longer do his job.

It could also mean that journalists who cover Parliament would be intimidated against reporting critical stories for fear of losing accreditation and maybe their jobs as a result.

The decision by the Select Committee comes after it accused Mbingo of being ignorant of Parliamentary procedures. Does it mean that now journalists will need to take a test set by the government before they are allowed to report on Parliament?

The committee said mechanisms to accredit journalists should be put in place within eight weeks. There is still time to mount a protest to get the decision overturned.