Fighting for the Safety of African Journalists

Case study: Fighting for the safety of African journalists

Journalists and other media workers in Africa are frequently attacked and killed simply for doing their jobs of seeking the truth. Thanks to trade unions' efforts, on the eve of the AU Summit taking place in Addis Adaba, Ethiopia on 30 - 31 January 2011, the African Union is close to introducing policies to protect these workers. Success will ultimately benefit both journalists and African citizens in general, as only a truly independent media can hold governments to account.

Participants at a groundbreaking workshop on the safety and protection of African Journalists

In Somalia, some journalists virtually live in their workplace, work around the clock and rarely see their families. They do this not through choice but because of the constant fear of being killed, tortured, kidnapped or forced into exile which hangs over us. Yet despite this, more people are entering the profession, fired up by their belief in the importance of investigating and exposing corruption and human rights violations.

'Within the past four years at least 25 journalists have been killed in Somalia and no one has ever been tried or arrested for these killings,' says Mustafe Haji Abdi Nur, war correspondent and member of the National Union of Somali Journalists. 'If we are defeated in our duties to report the news, then journalism in Somalia is also defeated.'

A shocking toll

Unstable Somalia may be an exceptionally difficult place for journalists to work but murder, violence and intimidation are all too frequently experienced by journalists across Africa.

Over 125 journalists were killed between 1996 and 2006 in the continent, most by shootings. The killings continue today, with 11 journalists murdered in 2010 and 13 murdered in 2009, 12 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, representing the region's highest death toll since 1999.

Reporting on war and conflict increasingly puts journalists at risk as they rise to the challenge of meeting round-the-clock deadlines for voracious and highly competitive media operations. While some deaths in war zones are inevitable, many are avoidable. They happen because journalists are simply not equipped to work as safely as possible. Journalists, many of them young, are often not adequately trained in security awareness, provided with essential protective equipment or covered by insurance.

Women covering wars face additional hazards - protection kits are not designed for them, they may feel they have to take additional risks to prove themselves with male colleagues and there are reports of women journalists who have been raped.

However, most journalist deaths in Africa happen outside of conflict situations. For example, in 2009, journalists were murdered while investigating local corruption in Nigeria and covering the political crisis in Madagascar.

Jim Boumelha, President of the International Federation of Journalists, says

'The majority ... died not just as a result of bad luck or that they have been in the wrong place at the wrong time but more so because the majority of these killings are planned assassinations.'

Killings and violence are not the only punishments meted out to journalists in the course of researching and reporting stories. In Somalia, for example, armed groups have adopted a new strategy of kidnapping journalists to exert pressure on them and their families in order to stop them doing their jobs, while in Nigeria journalists are being kidnapped for ransom.

Ndey Tapha Sosseh, President of the Gambia Press Union says:

'In Gambia, the number of exiled journalists continues to swell after a decade of torture, disappearances, continuous death threats and actual death. To say that this makes being a women journalist in the print press in Gambia an unsafe job would be an understatement. Those that don't like what you write immediately believe that you and those you associate with are political opposition sympathises with an ulterior agenda. After pressure from the state we often get sacked and/or have clashes with the law.

In the summer of 2009, just for doing her job, the state caused international outrage by detaining and sentencing the Gambian Press Union Vice President, Sarata Jabbi - Dibba who was thrown in jail with her 8 month baby whom she was nursing. She is now in exile. Gambian men and women journalists are seriously engaged in getting this resolution passed as it would give us a safety net and reassurance that there is hope of getting the dangers we face at work addressed.'

Ndey Tapha Sosseh in discussion at the workshop

This should matter to all Africans and their governments, says Kwasi Adu Amankwah, General Secretary of the International Trades Union Congress Africa.

'Democracy has no future in Africa as long as the safety of journalists is compromised. Moreover, the role of journalists and the mass media in general are very strategic for reconciliation. The freedom of expression is the mother of all freedoms and hence very critical for the defence of human rights.'

Kwasi Adu-Amankwah, ITUC Africa

Getting away with murder

'Killing a journalist just for carrying out his/her duty is one of the most heinous crimes committed in Africa and the perpetrators are not brought to the justice they deserve.'

Omar Faruk Osman, President, Federation of African Journalists (FAJ)

It is scandalous that the vast majority of journalist killings remain unresolved because of the lack of enforcement of the rule of law and the lack of persecution of the perpetrators.

In half of the recent six murders in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, while trials took place and the alleged perpetrators were sentenced to prison, they were soon released and the real instigators of the crimes have not been prosecuted. While in Nigeria none of the killers of eight journalists in 2009 have been brought to trial.

Stanis Nkundiye, Secretary General of National Syndicate of Professional Press in DR Congo and President of Union des Syndicats des Professionnels de la Presse d'Afrique Centrale, says:

'Often one of the main reasons for this continued impunity is the poor investigations into these murders, which are usually botched by the police or African Union authorities responsible for criminal investigations... As a result, many observers conclude that the killing of journalists fits into a bigger picture to suppress truth and democracy.'

Stanis Nkundiye, National Syndicate of Professional Press

Forging powerful alliances

'The time has come for the African Union to stand up for the safety and protection of African journalist.' Omar Faruk Osman

The responsibility for protecting journalists lies at the door of the owners of media operations but ultimately with governments.

Fatou Jagne Senghore, Regional Representative, ARTICLE 19, says:

'This obligation goes beyond providing security, to include the designing of policies that are geared towards the protection of journalists and the entire citizenry.'

Fatou Jagne Senghore, Article 19 (photo courtesy of AU Commission)

At its 2010 Congress, the FAJ passed a resolution on the safety of African journalists, which urged the African Union (AU) to adopt a resolution on safety similar to the UN Security Council's resolution 1738 in 2006. The UN resolution provides measures for UN Peace Keepers to protect journalists but has had little impact because there are now more AU than UN Peace Keepers, with no mandate to protect African journalists.

The FAJ set about building an alliance with other trade unions and civil society organisations to exert pressure on the AU and get the African media industry to take the issue more seriously. An important step was the agreement of an eight-month project from July 2010 between the FAJ, the Trades Union Congress and the National Union of Journalists in the UK to secure the AU resolution.

The project consists of:

A groundbreaking Safety and Protection of African Journalists workshop at the AU's head office in Addis Ababa in September 2010.

Resources to help the FAJ to recruit an advocacy officer for six months to coordinate effective lobbying through to the AU Summit in January 2011.

The production of a lobbying toolkit for unions to raise awareness and pressurise their governments to enact the resolution once it is passed.

Making progress

The FAJ brought together 37 journalist unions from Africa and the NUJ of UK to lobby participants at the 15^th AU Summit in July 2010 and presented a letter to the AU President and the African heads of state and government there.

As a result, the AU Commission Chairperson, HE Jean Ping, agreed that the AU and FAJ should work together on the safety of journalists and press freedom in Africa. Since then, there has been excellent and close cooperation between the FAJ and the AU's Department of Political Affairs and Department of Communication and Information.

Jean Ping, AU Commission shaking hands with Omar Faruk Osman, Federation of African Journalists

This achievement was an important factor in helping the FAJ lobby African governments throughout the summer and autumn and garner support from other civil society organisations.

It also helped the FAJ attract 28 high-profile participants, nearly a third of them women, to its September workshop. As well as leading journalists' representatives, these included Musa Gassama, Regional Representative, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Mrs. Habiba Merjri-Cheikh, Spokesperson and Head of the Division of Communication and Information at the African Union Commission; HE Jean Ping; and the British Ambassador to Ethiopia and UK Permanent Representative to the AU, Norman Ling.

Some women participants in discussion (photo courtesy of AU Commission)

At the two-day workshop, participants:

Engaged in wide-ranging discussion of who was responsible for the safety and protection of journalists and what protections were needed.

Shared the difficulties they faced.

Planned further lobbying.

Drafted the resolution for the African Union Summit.

The draft resolution has now been finalised and will be considered at the AU Summit on 30-31 January 2011.

The AU Commission is taking the lead in persuading the member states to adopt it and, in a highly positive move, the Commission Chairperson is planning to make the FAJ workshop a key feature of his six-monthly report to the AU Summit, which has to be endorsed by government leaders.

The draft resolution:

Sets out extensive policy compelling the 53 member states, their legislative institutions and law enforcement agencies to deal with issues of protection and safety of journalists and impunity of perpetrators of violence against them.

Will oblige governments to ensure that all violations are investigated, all perpetrators prosecuted and that they produce an annual assessment of their country's record.

Will compel military and security forces to recognise the rights of news media procedures and urge all media training to include safety training.

Will enable trade unions and others to scrutinise their governments' records and lobby for enactment of the resolution into national legislation.

Effective lobbying by the unions means that the Mali and Ethiopian governments have publicly committed to backing the resolution, while several others, including Rwanda and Nigeria, have expressed initial support and are developing their official position.

Mali has traditionally been a strong and vocal supporter of media freedom at the AU and Moctar Ouane, its Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has affirmed his government's willingness to champion the resolution.

Next steps

Many of the pieces seem set in place to secure a successful outcome at the African Union Summit in Addis next week.

But even if the resolution does succeed, individual journalists' unions face an uphill battle to ensure that their governments translate the protections it offers into national legislation to achieve real improvements in journalists' safety.

The stakes could not be higher. As the Addis workshop concept note outlined:

'Democracy will not take root unless people have the information they can rely on to make informed choices. But there will be no accurate and reliable information unless media staff can work safely.'