In August 2008, barely six months in Office President Khama’s government proposed to pass a Media Practitioners Law similar to Zimbabwe’s infamous Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The Media Practitioners Bill among others required journalists to be registered and imposed a statutory media council. On December 31 2008, swiftly and flinching to neither reason nor criticism, President Karma signed the Media Practitioners Bill into Law.

Such was the tempo of media government relations throughout southern Africa in 2008. The media were faced with hypersensitive and intolerant governments, swift and harsh in their responses including closing down media houses, passing unfriendly legislation, license withdrawal threats, banning of programs and increases in legal defamation cases.

The Tanzanian government closed down Mwanahalisi newspaper on 13th October 2008 on charges that the paper had offended the ruling party and President Kikwete’s family. Notable was the impunity and swiftness in which government acted, bypassing all arbitrary and legal avenues.

In Zambia, the presidential by-elections of 30 October 2008 following the death of Zambia’s President in September remain a grim reminder of how fragile, tense and often temporary government media relationship are. Government banned radio phone in programes on the pretext of inciting political violence and instability. The Post Newspapers Zambian leading Private newspaper was continually threatened with closure.
Similarly, in Malawi and Lesotho government had been on a crusade to ban radio stations. Lesotho’s Harvest FM was off air for three months following a ban for allegedly defaming senior government officials, while a prominent journalist had been charged with sedition.

The ANC led government took up arms with the media in South Africa over a publication of the cartoon ‘Rape of Justice’ by Zapiro in the Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian respectively.  The ANC called the cartoon as an abuse of freedom of expression with others suggesting the cartoon was a racist attack against black leadership. With one of the highest defamation cases in the region, the heavy politicizing of the state broadcaster SABC South Africa once a regional model on media freedom is feared to be regressing.

Namibia made its own defamation record, with three rulings against three media houses in a space of three months and four in 12 months.

The year started with a dire media freedom outlook in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and Angola. The situation remains bleak.

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