Eswatini
Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) is a small, landlocked country located in South Africa and it is ranked 131 out of 180 countries in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) report. In the last five years, Eswatini — Africa’s last absolute monarchy — has moved from being 152 to being 131 on the list and this means that the country is undergoing positive changes in terms of media freedom. However, recent events suggest that there are no improvements whatsoever — journalists are unable to work freely and are often subject to violence.
The WPFI is a tool used to compare the level of press freedom in 180 countries and is published as an annual report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an international non-profit organization that promotes freedom of information. By evaluating countries on different criteria such as their political, economic, sociocultural context, the RSF rank them from best to worst — one being the freest and 180 being the most oppressed.
The reason behind Eswatini’s low ranking is mainly political. RSF reports that the autocratic King Mswati III who has ruled the country since 1986 has considerable control over the media, given that he owns the only TV channel in the country, the editor of the biggest newspaper is his speech writer and the Minister of Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) is his daughter.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide, reported that in February this year, a reporter for a privately owned news website was beaten up by police officers for live streaming a protest on Facebook. In a July 2021 article by RSF, two similar incidents were mentioned: two South African journalists were threatened at gunpoint for covering a prodemocracy movement in 2021 and in 2020 two website editors were arrested — one of which was tortured and had to flee abroad.
Unfortunately, the law in Eswatini favors such treatment towards journalists. The Sedition Act and defamation laws in Eswatini restrict media coverage and criminalize publications that could possibly damage King Mswati’s reputation or criticize the monarchy. In Eswatini’s country profile, RSF mentions another case of abuse in 2017, when an investigative journalist received death threats for writing an article that connected the King to a corruption case.
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“The government is uneasy with the free flow of information. Every time a journalist reports something critical about the government, they and their families are hunted. The government and the King do not want press freedom in the country, because this would expose the underlying corruption and problems in the country”, said Nqaba Matshazi, a campaign coordinator for the Media Institute of Southern Africa in an interview for the International Press Institute (IPI).
The IPI is an association of media professionals who represent independent journalism and the article in which Matshazi talked about press freedom in Eswatini was published in July 2021.
Another article about events in Eswatini in 2021 published in The Human Rights Watch — an organization that investigates human rights abuses in the world — shows the King’s way of suppressing the media in times when it is needed most. Last year, in order to stop the social media promotion of the protests that were taking place, the government blocked internet access in the country twice.
A similar case was seen in 2020 when the authorities didn’t allow community radio stations to inform the citizens about COVID-19, reported the International Federation of Journalists, the world’s largest organization of journalists that promotes media freedom.
In the world freedom report done by Freedom House, an American organization that researches issues related to civil rights, 100 countries are ranked from most oppressed to freest. There, Eswatini holds the 17th place meaning that it is among the top 20 most oppressed countries in the world.
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Teona Sima is a sophomore at the American University in Bulgaria, double majoring in Business Administration and Journalism and Mass Communications. She hopes to see the media being free of political influence.
