UNPACKING THE STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ESWATINI

For us here  in Eswatini, the uprising of June 2021 put the nail in the coffin of the traditional media. The influence of online media, which quickly sprang up during that time, as the vehicle that perpetuated the civil unrest cannot be underestimated.

Government’s bid to control the flow of information on online platforms during this most difficult time for Eswatini, by shutting down the internet on several occasions did not help because, by doing so, this had the unintended consequence of affecting commercial transactions, even across our borders, and threatened the broader economy. It was bad.

I am one of those journalists who have suffered at the hands of government excesses in its bid to suppress freedom of expression. I spent 15 months in prison for exercising this right between March 2014 and June 2015. The government has never acknowledged the wrong that was done to me and my co-accused, the late Thulani Maseko, despite the Director of Public Prosecutions conceding that our prosecution was wrong and the Supreme Court making a legal finding to that effect too.

One can only surmise that government’s reaction to our misfortune was informed by a belief that independent media Eswatini will not be tolerated, regardless of the facts. Put differently, the message is that facts do not vindicate the truth. To underscore this point, let me quote Judge Mpendulo Simelane when he sentenced Thulani and I to two years in prison on July 17 2014. He said: “Some journalists have this misconception that just because they have the power of the pen and paper they can say or write anything under the disguise of freedom of expression. This is a fallacy.”[1]

Please note that Mr Maseko was a lawyer who dedicated his life to human rights and it was I the journalist. The judge, therefore, took time off to single out the media on free speech rights in order to send a message to all of us that such freedoms are, indeed, a fallacy. That’s how I understand this quotation. Why am I telling you this? I bring it up because I want to highlight the fact that the rise of digital news dissemination Eswatini also brought its fair share of problems, when you look at the other side of the coin.

Bills Affecting The Media

The government of Eswatini had already been working on legislation to control the exchange of information online, and particularly social media platforms when the uprising began in June 2021. At the time, I wrote a few articles, published in The Times of Eswatini, where I pointed out the threat of such laws as the Computer Crime and Cyber Crime Bill of 2020 and the Data Protection Bill of 2020 posed to information dissemination and freedom of expression. I also pointed out the unintended dangers these proposed laws posed to society.

In sum, in the form these Bills were presented they threatened to criminalise all forms of digital expression in a country which wants to be seen by the world as tolerant of diverse views, even if there are no political parties participating in the governance of the country. However, during the uprising of 2021, the major online publications that cropped up to push for change, I must say, also relied heavily on disinformation and downright lies to get an edge over what one could refer to as the mainstream media.

For instance, in the early days of July 2021, it was widely reported that King Mswati had fled the country and had gone into exile as the civil unrest gained momentum. In other words, the world was told that a coup had succeeded Eswatini hardly a week after the unrest had begun.When some of us tried to point out that this was not true, the blowback was vicious from those driving this disinformation campaign together with their followers. There were many more stories to come that were just not factually correct told by those who were pushing the change agenda.

What this tells us is that the attacks on the media have come from all fronts in this country. I dare to even say that equal to the government, so are those who seek political change Eswatini just as hostile towards the media and journalists. During that period when the uprising was gaining momentum, in my capacity as a journalist, I was invited to a radio talk show in South Africa to give my views on the political unrest here. During that interview, where I was part of a panel that included representatives from some of this country’s political groups, I made what I honestly thought was an innocuous, but very obvious comment. I said PUDEMO had hijacked this struggle for change and had made it theirs.

The response from those supporting the violence and calls for change were furious, after The Times picked up on the interview and published what I had said in their Sunday edition. I was lynched on social media, particularly Facebook. So much so that, one day, I received a call from a very senior police officer at Police Headquarters who told me that they had become aware that my life was in danger. He told me that they had actually dispatched a team to watch me for protection. It was a very scary time.

When the storm blew over, my comments began to die down, I approached Thulani, who was a PUDEMO man, to ask him what the farce was all about? He laughed at me and said “Badzinwa kutsi uyasimaka”. A loose translation of this would be that I was tripping the mass democratic movement in their quest for change with my comments. I never could make sense of Thulani’s comments because that was never my intention, but had said what I considered an obvious truth to an audience outside Eswatini. Is it, therefore, for government to take action and curtail freedom of expression when political agendas are pushed with distorted information and downright lies? My answer is simple; No!

One of the lessons that have come out of the Eswatini experience is that freedom of expression underscores one of the most important rights mankind has in its quest towards realising the values of self-determination. To curtail it, to punish those who use this basic human right, defeats the very purpose of mankind’s existence. The lesson that comes out of our experience is that freedom of expression, in its full spectrum, has this incredible ability to self-correct society, so that the untruths told by those who seek to deceive the masses, be it government or those fighting for freedom will eventually be called out by the very people they seek to capture when the facts are brought to bear.

That is why I strongly disagree with the use of other means, whether through legislation or brute force to curtail freedom of expression. Societies grow because, as has been said before, in the free market of exchange of ideas and information, people are empowered with the necessary tools to make their own choices and come to the right conclusions about their circumstances. Nobody should have a monopoly on information; not government and not those who seek to bring about political change in society. The people are entitled to make their choices, empowered with the full information available out there.

Threat to The Media

There is a whole lot of legislation that seeks to regulate the media environment Eswatini. However, since the advent of the Constitution in 2005, there has been an incredible increase in common law defamation lawsuits against the print media Eswatini that has almost paralysed newspapers and other print publications. Last year, in 2022, we even saw the introduction of SLAPP lawsuits phenomenon into this country’s jurisprudence in an attempted lawsuit against the publication I work for. SLAPP, for the sake of clarity, stands for Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation.

It is a relatively new world-wide form of assault on the media used by huge organisations engaged in nefarious deeds to shut down any scrutiny on their activities by the media on matters of public interest. The challenges faced by the media Eswatini, when one looks at the cases that have gone to the High Court on defamation claims, is that the courts will most invariably rule against any publication which faces a claim by a disgruntled public official aggrieved by what has been written about him or her.

In one case, where the current government spokesman, Mr Alpheous Nxumalo sued The Eswatini Observer[2] for defamation, the Supreme Court made a finding that, in fact, Mr Nxumalo had not been defamed, per se, but said he must be paid compensation anyway, simply because he had asked for it. It was a ridiculous judgment, but one that tells you a lot about the state of the media Eswatini.

The media Eswatini remains under siege, not just from the government, but also from the judiciary whose attitude towards freedom of expression is frighteningly hostile. To make this point much clearer, let me go back to Judge Mpendulo’s comments where he found Thulani and I guilty of contempt of court to demonstrate the levels of this hostility towards the media.

Even though this was common knowledge, he stated: “I was in attendance when the said Bhantshana was remanded. It is an uncontroverted fact. I was there in my capacity as the then Registrar of the High Court hence I was part of the coram. This, I say without getting into the merits of that matter.”[3]

So, what we have here is a judge, who was a witness in the subject of the articles Thulani and I wrote and were arrested for writing, without any irony, admitting in a judgment that he was a witness to the case he was presiding over and, therefore, knew more about what happened than we did.

It gets worse. The Minister for Labour and Social Security at the time also did not find this judgment strange. She took a copy with her to Geneva, Switzerland to hand it to ILO officials who were questioning our imprisonment. Clearly, neither the executive nor judiciary saw anything wrong with a judge presiding over a case he was a witness to. Or, perhaps, because it was a trial against the media, it was just fine to relax the rules of impartiality to judicial process.

 Conclusion

Government has not given up on its bid to enact the Computer Crimes Bill and the Data Protection Bill to add to the already existing plethora of legislation. The Constitution itself, which otherwise grants rights to citizens is being used as a weapon against the media. For many, many years now, government has promised to free the airwaves to let independent broadcasters take their chances in the country’s airwaves. However, nothing has come from that.

It is no exaggeration to surmise that with the weaponising of the internet and social media as a means to call for political change, the government will dig its heels in and seek to curb freedom of expression rather than let the free flow of information and ideas determine our destiny as a people.It is up to us who understand and appreciate the consequences of government excesses who should speak out. We also need to call out those seeking change to do so with the truth of their convictions and point it out when they mislead the public with disinformation campaigns.

Thank You!

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