27 11 13 The Guardian – East African governments turn on vibrant media in bid to stem criticism 26 November 2013

"The region is on a slide," said Henry Maina, East and Horn
of Africa director for Article 19, a London-based human rights group. "There
isn't a country that is safe for journalists." Across east Africa, governments
that are key allies of the US and Europe, and recipients of billions of dollars
in western aid, have installed or are seeking to install draconian measures to
curb press freedoms. Journalists have been accused of being terrorists,
imprisoned for their reports and even killed in recent months. The actions come
as a vibrant local and regional media is increasingly investigating corruption,
political and business scandals, and openly criticising their governments, their
reports splashed across front pages and leading the broadcast
news.

Particularly alarming, human rights groups say, is Kenya.
The government has at times clamped down on the local press, but it remains one
of the continent's most boisterous independent media. Now, that could change.
Kenyan lawmakers voted this month to create a media tribunal with powers to
impose fines of up to $240,000 on media companies, seize property and bar
journalists from working. The legislation, considered the most repressive since
Kenya's independence in 1963, would also bring strong controls on radio and
television broadcasts and restrict advertising revenue from foreign
companies.

Critics say the measures, if signed into law by President
Uhuru Kenyatta, could return Kenya to the days of dictatorship in the 1970s and
1980s, when an iron grip over the media prevailed. The proposed legislation
comes as Kenya's media have criticised the government's response to the
September attack on Nairobi's Westgate mall. The attack, orchestrated by
Somalia's al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab militia, killed more than 60
people.

Critics also say the government has become more hostile to
the media and civil society groups because it considers them as supporting the
trials of Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, at the international criminal
court at the Hague. The men are accused of orchestrating and funding mobs to
kill and pillage during disputed 2007 elections.

"These new laws are an attempt to undermine freedoms of
expression and association in Kenya," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director for
Human Rights Watch. "Kenya's leaders should act swiftly to prevent these bills
from becoming law and focus on the country's real challenges, like police reform
and accountability."

Kenyan government officials have denied the allegations. But
for many activists and journalists, the measures are the latest sign of how
African journalists are being challenged daily. Only four sub-Saharan countries
have a press that is fully free – Cape Verde, Ghana, Mauritius, and São Tomé and
Principe, according to the most recent Freedom of the Press index, published by
the watchdog group Freedom House. Equatorial Guinea and Eritrea were among the
world's eight most-repressive countries, using legal pressure, imprisonment and
other means to suppress independent reporting, the report
said.

In Ethiopia, journalists have been imprisoned on trumped-up
terrorism charges or arrested without charge, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said. Media repression in Mali, which traditionally had one of the
continent's most free-wheeling presses, grew last year in the wake of a military
coup and Islamist militants' seizure of the north. In Burundi, the new media law
also forbids journalists from publishing articles about national security
issues, which the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders described as "a black
day for freedom of information in Burundi". Those who break the law could face
fines as much as $6,000 in a nation where journalists earn a few hundred dollars
a month.

Days after Kenya's proposed legislation, Tanzania tried to
tighten its already strict media law by significantly increasing fines and
imposing possible three-year prison sentences on journalists who publish
articles deemed as "seditious". Last month, the government suspended two
publications for "hostile articles" that incited people to "lose confidence in
state institutions". "The stronger the press gets in east Africa, the more
independent and more critical journalists become, the more authorities rely on
these laws to counter these advancements," said Tom Rhodes, east Africa
representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Rhodes noted that Kenyan journalists and civil society
groups fought hard for the creation of an independent press in the 1990s and
made huge gains in the early 2000s. If the proposed legislation becomes law, it
would usher in more government interference and control of media content, said
David Ohito, vice-chairman of the Kenya Editors' Guild. The penalties, he added,
would shut down many small radio stations and newspapers; many journalists would
censor themselves or leave the profession. In parliament, lawmakers have
declared that media's freedom to operate needs limits and should not cross
certain lines. Jamleck Kamau, who proposed the legislation, has publicly urged
Kenyatta to sign it into law.

Kenya's media, though, are fighting back. On their front
pages, newspapers have attacked the proposed measures. One of the most respected
publications, the Daily Nation, said the bill "puts the country in the same
ranks with Zimbabwe, Cuba, Ethiopia and Kuwait" and had propelled Kenya "firmly
on the path of regression into the era of darkness". "If this law is passed, it
would just add more negativity to the image and stature of Kenya among nations,"
Ohito said.

This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates
material from the Washington Post