Media Bodies team up to ensure media law reforms
By Jane Chirwa Da SilvaThe Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia has said the media in Zambia have formed a united front to ensure that media law reforms take place in the country for the benefit of not only the media but the country at large.
Speaking during a media conference held at MISA Zambia on March 5, 2008, Kabwe said that the media had managed to rise above all else and was working together to ensure that matters pertaining to media freedom and freedom of expression were entrenched in the Zambian constitution.
He said that media bodies like (MISA) Zambia, Press Associations of Zambian (PAZA), Zambia Media Women Associations (ZAMWA), Media Council of Zambia (MECOZ), Media Trust Fund (MTF), Press Freedom Committee of The Post (PFCP), Catholic Media Association (CMA), Zambia Community Media Forum (ZACOMEF), and Southern African Editors’ Forum (SAEF) in Zambia, had decided to remain united and have continued to champion the cause for media law reforms despite setbacks that were encountered on the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) and the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) boards appointments.
“The media associations have never been so united to push for media law reforms in the country. Since the landmark judgement on the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) that disadvantaged the media associations from ensuring that the Minister for Information accepts the names that were submitted to him to sit on the two boards, the associations have never cowed. Actually, the judgement that seemed to have struck the last nail in the coffin, has indeed made us see the need to be more united and champion this cause” he said.
He urged the media to intensify the fight for media law reforms and ensure that more organisations were brought on board to advocate media law reforms.
And in a communiqué issued on behalf of the Media Associations on Law Reforms which had gathered at Lusaka’s Cresta Golfview Hotel on Saturday, 23 February, 2008 of which MISA Zambia is a part, PAZA vice president Amos Chanda urged Members of Parliament to reject the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill if it was not made public before it was reintroduced back into Parliament.
Chanda also urged Parliamentarians to support the cause for an open FOI and to amend laws that were impinging on freedom of the media.
The Zambian penal code is one source of oppressive laws that is usually used against media such as the defamation of the president which is a crime, the State Secrets Act among others.
He reinstated that the FOI cause was a public one and not only a media tool that would ease their work and therefore needed to be treated as such. “We categorically refuse statutory regulation as the law is already sufficient for errant journalists, and in the same vein we already have our self regulating institution which we are strengthening.
Meanwhile Chanda has called for the operationalisation of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) and Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Acts.
“In this respect, we petition the Honourable Speaker of Parliament to order the Minister of Information to present to Parliament the names of the IBA board for ratification,” Chanda demanded.
He also called for an end to threats on media houses especially community media by public officials and subsequent harassment of journalists by anybody.
The communiqué is just one of the strategise that the media will use to ensure that media law reforms take place and also to ensure that such laws would not be manipulated to government’s favour and preservation.
ENDS
