MISA ATTACKS SWAZI CENSORSHIP

Swaziland’s main media rights organisation has condemned the Swazi Government for bullying an independent newspaper the Times Sunday into dropping a regular column written by Mario Masuku, a human rights activist.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) called it a ‘blatant act by the government to censor both Masuku and the Times newspaper’.

As I reported earlier this month (January 2010) Majahenkhaba Dlamini, the Attorney General, told Innocent Maphalala, the editor of the Times Sunday, he will face jail time for supporting Masuku (who the Swazi state has branded a terrorist) if he doesn’t stop publishing the articles.

Even though Masuku was acquitted of a trumped up terrorism charge in September 2009, Dlamini says the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), the organisation he leads, is a terrorist organisation.

In a letter to Maphalala the Attorney General accused him of dealing with a terrorist and in doing so ‘you and your newspaper cannot avoid being identified with the entity or its member (s).’

This is a reference to the Suppression of Terrorism Act which makes it illegal for anyone to offer any kind of support to terrorist organisations. If charged and found guilty of such an offence the editor could face up to 25 years in jail.

The MISA Swaziland chapter in a statement said it ‘strongly condemns the act by the government, and notes with great concern that the government action not only perpetuates the state of fear and censorship in the Swazi media, but also violates the basic principles of freedom of expression, a fundamental human right also guaranteed in the Swaziland constitution. The government action also greatly interferes with the editorial independence of the newspaper.

‘MISA-Swaziland has therefore appealed to the government to allow Masuku and any other Swazi citizen to exercise their right to free expression and further allow the Times newspaper to exercise its editorial independence without undue interference and threats. ‘

MISA commended the Times Sunday ‘for coming out to expose the government for its bullying action to censor the newspaper and not choose to suffer in silence’.