Maravi

PFC vows to fight statutory media regulation

PFC vows to fight statutory media regulation
By Chibaula Silwamba
Friday August 01, 2008 [04:00]

THE Press Freedom Committee (PFC) of The Post has vowed to fight statutory regulation of the media to the bitter end. Committee secretary general Sheikh Chifuwe observed that the enemies of the media had come out in the open and the PFC and other well-meaning media freedom activists would take them head on.

"It is immoral for some individuals to masquerade in the name of trying to uphold ethics, when in actual sense they are stifling the media in the country.

These are the enemies of the media whether speaking from outside or from within the media," said Chifuwe in an interview yesterday. "I think that we are turning into an enemy of ourselves; the entire world must be laughing at Zambia."

He said people around the world were fighting for freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

"It's shocking that media practitioners who are supposed to spearhead the campaign for media freedoms are the ones who are now in the forefront stifling the freedoms of the media. The little freedoms that the media are enjoying now are being threatened by the media practitioners themselves," Chifuwe observed. "As PFC, other than being disturbing, we are scared that this is coming from within the media. This also compromises our fight for access to information legislation."

Chifuwe urged the advocate of statutory media regulation to realise that their actions would have negative impact on the profession and the media in general.

"I think that the legislatures must be getting excited looking at what is in the media. I think that among the legislatures we have the enemies of the media but we are very shocked as PFC that there are people who are worse enemies of the media within the media," Chifuwe said. "We hope that people will come back to their senses and realise that what they are trying to do and advocating for will not yield the desired results because when you regulate under the law, you cannot cheat yourself that you will control the implementation of that law. It is naïve to think in that manner.

"When you regulate in that manner, I think that there are adequate organs of government that are tasked with the responsibility to implement, to ensure that that law is followed to the latter. So people should stop cheating themselves that they are going to regulate or ensure that the implementation is not adverse in terms of punishing the would-be violators of the regulations."

He said the advocates of statutory media regulations should not cheat themselves that they would come up with a bill which would not be altered by legislatures.

"Members of parliament have constitutional rights to make alterations to bills that are presented in Parliament. So let people not cheat themselves that they are going to be the final authority, the members of parliament will decide what shall be contained in that piece of legislation," Chifuwe said.

"It's clear that those who are advocating for this do not understand the implications. The implications are much more severe than they think and I think that as PFC, we will not sit with our hands folded, we will go all the way to ensure that this does not see light, we will mobilise the little resources that we have to ensure that favourable laws in this country prevail."

Chifuwe said the PFC would fight the battle for the benefit of everyone.
"We are not only doing this for the media, we are looking at a broader picture; we have some of our professionals who are an authority on various topics who can write more competently than the journalists themselves," said Chifuwe. "So what this regulation will mean is that we will cut off all these professionals who are an authority on various topics.

So we are saying no to statutory regulation! We will fight it! It's not the first battle to get involved in, there are several other battles we have been involved in and I think that we are very much happy with the results that we have scored and this attempt has just energised us to fight it, we will not stop at anything.”

Labels: MEDIA, PFC, REGULATION

posted by MrK @ 4:08 AM