MALAWI’S President Lazarus Chakwera has assured media practitioners that his administration will continue to promote and protect freedom of expression, as a free press is a driver to the promotion and protection of other freedoms and rights, Madalitso Wills Kateta reports.
Chakwera was speaking at the Kamuzu Palace in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, on Wednesday when he hosted members of the press as part of this year’s World Press Celebrations.
He assured the members of the press that he will continue to fulfill the oath that he took to uphold the country’s constitution in which are enshrined freedoms and rights including that of expression and a free press.
‘If you want to protect or promote someone’s right to a fair trial, say it publicly and loudly. In other words, freedom of expression and freedom of the press is not just a right. It is a sacred responsibility we must take seriously because the promotion and protection of all other rights depends on it,’ said Chakwera.
He said by implication, freedom of expression is a sacred responsibility that must never be abused, desecrated or corrupted to avoid putting other human rights at risk.
‘When all the weapons, all the money, all the laws, all the institutions, all the governments, and all the borders in the world are no longer available or able to defend, promote, and protect any of our rights, our freedom of expression and freedom of the press are our last line of defence,’ said Chakwera.
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MIS
A) Malawi Chairperson, Teleza Ndanga while thanking the president for maintaining his commitment to press freedom, including the repeal of sedition laws and the amendment of the protected flag, emblems and names act by removing the name ‘President’ as one of the protected names under the act however reminded Chakwera that Malawi still has criminal defamation laws that need to be repealed with urgency.
Quoting Chakwera’s remarks at a similar event last year Ndanga said, ‘There are still a number of pieces of legislation, including the penal code, that criminalise and punish the exercise of freedoms that the Constitution guarantees. It is the task of our generation to see these contradictions cured by amendments through Parliament.’
Ndanga drew the president’s attention to the public discontent that followed the arrest of the director of the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau Martha Chizuma
for allegedly defaming the country’s former Director of Public Prosecutions as a concrete example of how defamation laws impinge on human rights.
‘Should a defamation crime deserve allocation of hordes of police officers, cars, handcuffing the suspect and all? This is exactly what MISA Malawi has been against all this while. Criminal defamation is benefiting the powerful, those in advantaged positions at the expense of the country’s scarce resources. Our laws already provide for an alternative, civil suit,’ she said.
Ndanga also asked government to review the Electronic Transactions and Cyber Security Act of 2016, which she said has some provisions that are broad and vague and the police frequently uses them to restrict freedom of expression online.
‘As an organisation, MISA Malawi does not condone misinformation or publication of false news, but criminalising online communication has a chilling effect and weaponises the law against freedom of expression,’ she said.
While the media has been facing challenges under the prevailing economic conditions, making it difficult for them to maintain payment of annual license fees, Ndanga expressed concern that the country’s broadcast regulator, Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (MACRA) pounced on some broadcasting houses over non-payment of the fees.
‘In 2022, MACRA revoked licences for six radio and four television stations. More than 20 other stations were also threatened with revocations,’ she said.
This year marks thirty years since the first commemoration of world press freedom day. Internationally the day was celebrated under the theme ‘Shaping a Future of Rights: Freedom of expression as a driver for all other human rights’.
