WASHINGTON DC: The Director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa(MISA), Tabani Moyo, slammed Eswatini’s suppression of the media telling Voice of America, “Eswatini is stubborn or notorious for shutting internet twice in 2021 alone in response to protests in that country.”
This, after Freedom House published its Freedom in the World 2022 Report making clear, 10 African countries had internet blackouts or social media blocks in 2021. Eswatini one of them and experienced, “large prodemocracy protests,”says the new report.
The problem is, Eswatini is still not free.
In a 2021 letter to the King, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined media organizations saying they were, “gravely concerned with the excessively inhumane and largely unreasonable responses by Eswatini security forces in dealing with media workers,” urging state authorities permit journalists to work, “without any harassment, assaults, threats or reprisals for doing their work.”
No political reforms have meant no increase in the capabilities of non-state reporters and independent media organizations.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) scores Eswatini at 0.21 on a scale of 0-1. This is a measure of the degree to which Eswatini manages, “its own political, social, and economic development, [how] free the media is to hold a government accountable, their social mobilization, and investigative journalism factor into this score.
Confirming oppression of the people of the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), the U.S. Human Rights Country Report 2020 reports, “Significant human rights issues included: cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; political prisoners or detainees; serious restrictions on free expression and the press; restrictions on political participation; and serious acts of corruption.” The State Department report shows Eswatini, “was inconsistent in its investigation, prosecution, and punishment of officials who committed human rights abuses,” adding on journalism that, “The law empowers the government to ban publications it deems “prejudicial or potentially prejudicial to the interests of defense, public safety, public order, public morality, or public health.”
At the United Nations, King Mswati III’s monarchy has yet to ratify the UN’s CCPR-OP1 Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights nor the CEDAW-OP Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
In 2020, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported on the Eswatini government’s persecuting of The Swaziland News editor-in-chief, Zweli Martin Dlamini, for journalism critical of the former Swaziland, now ranking 141st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2021 World Press Freedom Index. The executive monarch, Mswati, 53, stops journalists from working freely.
Against this backdrop, Journalist do not enjoy their Section 24 constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental rights like freedom of expression, lack media freedom, access to information, and safe and secure media environment, already under intense difficulties. According to the World Bank, Eswatini’s “Poverty levels have stagnated at high levels in the last five years, with 39.7% of the population estimated to have been living under the international $1.90 poverty line in 2016 and 2017.” The International Monetary Fund estimates the population at 1.151 million.
As Human Rights Watch has reported, limitations on journalists under a monarchical system not instituting political reforms, freer courts, or rule of law, makes Swazi’s are not free.
Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken delivers remarks on the 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, from the U.S. Department of State, flanked by his Spokesperson Ned Price in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 2021. [Source: State Department, photo by Freddie Everett/ Public Domain]