Govt is criminalising the media – PAZA

Govt is criminalising the media – PAZA
By Ernest Chanda
Sun 15 Nov. 2009, 04:00 CAT

PRESS Association of Zambia (PAZA) vice-president Amos Chanda has charged that the government is bent on criminalising the media profession through statutory regulation.

And the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia chapter has described the government's move to formulate a media regulatory Bill as hypocritical.
Commenting on Vice-President George Kunda's revelation to Parliament on Friday that government had already prepared a Bill to regulate the media through a statutory body, Chanda said the government's earlier plea to have the media regulate themselves or be regulated was an indirect way of coercing the media to be part of the regulation.

"That ultimatum given to us by government was meant to legitimise statutory regulation of the media which they had already decided. In other words, it was an indirect way of coercing us into being part of their statutory regulation move. They can go ahead and regulate but they should also know that what will come out of that is a bad law," Chanda said. "It seems government is bent on criminalising the media profession. What it means is that once the media are regulated by a statutory body then all professional errors will become criminal offences. If I mis-spell someone's name or I misquote someone, instead of the issue being addressed professionally, it will be subjected to the Penal Code. This is very dangerous in a democracy; you can't subject professional errors to Penal functions."

Chanda said the government was in the first place hoodwinking the media into believing that there was nothing sinister about the whole process.
He said there was nowhere in the world where the media operated freely under statutory regulation.

"It is easy for anyone to understand that in the first place government had already decided that they will regulate the media through a statutory body. And those manoeuvres of giving us an ultimatum were meant to show the outside world that they were trying to consult the media. But in essence they had already made the decision. In any case let the Vice-President take that Bill to Parliament so that the public can start debating it. For now we will proceed with our mechanism as media bodies, whether it works out now or then we don't mind," he said.

He reminded formulators of the law that they would be the first victims once it was enacted.
"There is no doubt that once government goes ahead and enacts a media regulatory law, it will licence freedom of expression for everyone. I know that mostly they think offences will be committed by the private media, but let them know that the same law will also hit the public media. In the end, politicians will also be victims of that law because they are the biggest consumers of publicity in this country," Chanda said.

"When Parliament passed a law on motor vehicle theft a few years back, the first victims were the formulators themselves. Equally, government won't achieve what they think they will achieve by regulating the media through a statutory body. We already have the Penal Code; there's nothing more that media law will do than what the Penal Code is doing."
And Kabwe expressed disappointment with the government's display of deceit on the media regulation Bill.

"We had a meeting with information minister Lieutenant General Ronnie Shikapwasha a few weeks back. And he expressed satisfaction with what we are doing on self regulation. In fact he himself said the President would be happy if he saw how far we had moved into formulating a self regulatory mechanism. United Nations Development Programme representatives met us and were pleased with what we were doing. And when they met government they indicated to our government that they UNDP supported our stance on media regulation," Kabwe said.

"You cannot keep formulating laws for one individual just because you feel they have misconducted themselves in one way or another. I know of lawyers who have misconducted themselves, but no one has ever targeted a law at them. In my view, what government has displayed is a hypocritical disposition because even the President indicated self regulation. It's sad that government is playing politics of appeasement and we don't know who they want to appease. If we can grapple with the Republican Constitution for 45 years, how does government expect us to regulate ourselves in six months? We will fight this draconian law at whatever cost."

On Friday, Vice-President George Kunda told Parliament that the government's bill on statutory regulation of the media was ready.
Vice-President Kunda said if the media had a bill, they could present it to Parliament by way of a private member's motion.