Maravi

MMD has lost credibility – CPJ

MMD has lost credibility – CPJ
By Abigail Chaponda in Ndola
Mon 22 Feb. 2010, 04:01 CAT

COMMITTEE to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Africa programme research associate Mohamed Keita has said the MMD government has lost much of the credibility that late president Levy Mwanawasa earned as a champion of press freedom.

Responding to a press query, Keita said the government’s inability to address freedom of the press had emboldened enemies of the press and this constituted a very serious challenge to the rule of law in Zambia.

“In Zambia’s case, the current government has lost much of the credibility that late president Levy Patrick Mwanawasa earned as a champion of press freedom.

We feel that changing the topic of the conversation to ‘regulating’ the media distracts from some very serious problems the government is either struggling to deal with or unwilling to deal with, namely its inability to address a disturbing culture of impunity for those who use violence, verbal intimidation or parts of the law to settle scores with their critics in the free media,” Keita said last week.

“We feel that the government’s inability to address this issue has emboldened enemies of the press and this constitutes a very serious challenge to the rule of law in Zambia.”

Keita said the government had some role to play in national media regulation, in terms of managing frequencies, enforcing widely-accepted standards for the dissemination of all information of public interest but this power came with responsibilities, including tolerating legitimate criticism and dissenting opinions, and meeting the criticism with the force of arguments and not the brutal force of intimidation.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is a non-partisan, non-profit organisation dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide.

Labels: CPJ, JOURNALISM, MMD, MOHAMED KEITA

posted by MrK @ 6:04 PM