Swazi King’s henchmen threaten to kill editor
Kenworthy News Media, 6 January 2018
Swazi
editor Zweli Martin Dlamini has fled to neighbouring South Africa after he
received death threats. He had written a story about absolute monarch King
Mswati III’s shady dealings in the telecommunications industry, writes
Kenworthy News Media.
Last
June, editor of independent business newspaper Swaziland Shopping Zweli Martin Dlamini wrote and published a story
about new telecommunications company Swazi Mobile, owned by King Mswati III and
run by local businessman Victor Gamedze.
The
punchline of the story was that the pair had forced Swaziland’s government to
side-line rival government parastatal company SPTC from competing with Swazi
Mobile – a new company that they and other high ranking officials, including
the Prime Minister, owns shares in.
In 2012,
SPTC had been ordered to switch of its fixed phones (landlines) and data
components to make way for South African phone company MTC, which Mswati and
the Prime Minister also had shares in.
Death
threats
“Shortly after publishing the story, I received a threatening call from Gamedze that lasted for twenty minutes where he vowed to ‘deal with me’. Later Communications Minister Dumsani Ndlangamandla summoned me to a meeting and told me that the King was not happy with the story and had ordered that the newspaper should be closed,” Dlamini says.
“Shortly after publishing the story, I received a threatening call from Gamedze that lasted for twenty minutes where he vowed to ‘deal with me’. Later Communications Minister Dumsani Ndlangamandla summoned me to a meeting and told me that the King was not happy with the story and had ordered that the newspaper should be closed,” Dlamini says.
After Swaziland
Shopping was closed, Dlamini
says he learnt that the police had a warrant for his arrest and that he would
be poisoned in prison. A close ally of Victor Gamedze also told Dlamini that
the businessman wanted him dead because he had revealed secrets about Swazi
Mobile.
Dlamini
says he subsequently fled to South Africa because he feared for his life.
And
Swaziland’s police forces certainly do have a record of torturing – and
occasionally murdering – those who challenge the King’s rule, as documented by
Amnesty International and other human rights organisations.
No media
freedom
The Swazi government have claimed that Swaziland Shopping was closed because it was not properly registered under the colonial-era Books and Newspapers Act of 1963, even though the newspaper has been published since 2014. The police also refuted that Dlamini was on the police “wanted list.”
The Swazi government have claimed that Swaziland Shopping was closed because it was not properly registered under the colonial-era Books and Newspapers Act of 1963, even though the newspaper has been published since 2014. The police also refuted that Dlamini was on the police “wanted list.”
Swaziland
is however renowned for its government fabricating stories and its lack of
media freedom, especially in regard to stories about King Mswati and his family
and friends.
Swaziland
is ranked 152th in Reporters Without Borders’ 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
There is “no media freedom,” the NGO says. According to a 2014 report by
African Media Barometer, journalists in Swaziland “face routine intimidation by
the state.”
In 2007,
King Mswati ordered the Times Sunday
to print an apology and sack those responsible for a critical story about him,
or he would close down the paper. In 2009, the editor of the Swazi Observer, owned by the king,
nearly lost his job for writing about the King’s luxury cars. And in 2014
the Times on Sunday editor was
summoned by the King and told that stories relating to his property did not
belong in the newspaper.
Victor
Gamedze has also been known to threaten journalists who publish critical
stories about his business dealings. In 2016, he allegedly assaulted a
journalist from the Swazi Observer
and ordered another fired because they wrote unfavourable stories about him and
his football team.
International
community must act
“In Swaziland, the media is being held hostage and been turned into spies for the state,” Zweli Martin Dlamini says. “For the calls for democracy to intensify, the media must be liberated so that the international community can know what is happening in Swaziland.”
“In Swaziland, the media is being held hostage and been turned into spies for the state,” Zweli Martin Dlamini says. “For the calls for democracy to intensify, the media must be liberated so that the international community can know what is happening in Swaziland.”
Secretary
General of the Media Workers Union of Swaziland, Sicelo Vilane, insists that
the charges against Dlamini are fabricated and should be dropped, and that the
international community must act against the lack of freedom of speech in
Swaziland.
“No-one
is allowed to report freely and Swaziland is one of the major violators of
media workers’ rights, freedom of speech and -expression. Why are they not
questioning the action of Mswati’s government?,” Vilane says.
See also
SWAZI
GOVERNMENT FORCES NEWSPAPER TO CLOSE
JOURNALISTS
‘SCARED TO DO THEIR JOBS’
https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/journalists-scared-to-do-their-jobs.html
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