New Report: Sub-Saharan Media Face ‘Dire’ Conditions
Washington
Political unrest and the heavy-handed use of libel laws led to a new decline in press freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa with almost half of the continent rated Not Free in a new report from Freedom House. Freedom of the Press 2008: A Global Survey of Media Independence ranked Africa just above the Middle East and North Africa, the region with the least amount of press freedom in the world.
The annual survey, released this week in advance of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, assesses the level of print, broadcast, and internet freedom in every country in the world. The 2008 ratings are based on an assessment of the legal, political and economic environments in which journalists worked in 2007.
Sub-Saharan Africa saw three out of the year’s five status changes worldwide. Benin declined from Free to Partly Free, and both the Central African Republic and Niger moved to the Not Free category. This regional trend reflected a global trend of press freedom declining in both established democracies and authoritarian countries.
While there were more declines in Sub-Saharan Africa than gains, a number of countries did show improvement, mainly because of reductions in the number of attacks against journalists and improvements in media diversity.
Other key findings from the survey include:
Region: 7 countries (15 percent) were rated Free, 18 countries (37 percent) Partly Free and 23 countries (48 percent) were rated Not Free.
Legal Intimidation: Authorities used libel laws, defamation charges and imprisonment to punish critical media in Benin, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Political Unrest: Authorities cracked down on media to suppress coverage of conflicts in the Central African Republic, Niger and the Comoros.
Election Harassment: Media outlet closures, threats and violence were used to intimidate media covering elections in Lesotho, Sierra Leone and Kenya.
Worst of the Worst: Authoritarian governments used legal pressure, imprisonment, and other forms of harassment to curtail independent journalism in Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe.
Improvements: The government-led crackdown against the press in Burundi was lessened during 2007. In Tanzania, there were no reported instances of extra-legal intimidation of journalists. Following the presidential election in Nigeria, harassment of journalists by authorities declined considerably. Cameroon licensed four new private broadcast outlets.
Detailed country information, methodology and graphics from the survey are available by contacting Laura Ingalls at ingalls@freedomhouse.org.
Freedom House is an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world.
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