The EPRDF regime under the current reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has pledged to guarantee genuine freedom of speech and provide a new policy framework and legal provisions for its unconditional implementation.
The press is now free to report on anything it likes and there is no restriction in freedom of expression. Yet, there is also no legal guarantee or institutional protection for what we may call “transitional freedom”. Hence, the need for the new administration and all the other stakeholders to learn from past mistakes in order to avoid future ones. Managing the press properly as a pillar of democracy is indeed a make or break issue.
Yet, this “transitional freedom” is not yet enshrined in a new policy document and this has become worrying for many journalists who are concerned about the future of free speech in this country. In this connection, it would be relevant to look back at some of the serious blunders the previous EPRDF regime under TPLF’s tutelage had committed and how its mismanagement or abuse of the press, led to the stifling of the voices of dissent and throttled genuine democracy.
The freedom of the press proclamation, otherwise known as the Press Proclamation No. 34/1992, came into being on October 21, 1992. It contained 23 articles and various subarticles.
The proclamation was the first of its kind dealing with the press in Ethiopia. There has never been such a law before in the entire history of the country where State censorship and self-censorship were deeply ingrained. However, the EPRDF government’s verbal endorsement of this freedom, which is in fact the mother of all freedoms, soon met its tragic destiny as the regime failed to match words with deeds and displayed its true colors as inherently anti-freedom and anti-democratic. This was the result of what British writer George Orwell called “Doublethink”.
The EPRDF State clearly indulged in “doublethink”. According to Orwell, “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. Thus, the State held contradictory beliefs as far as press freedom was concerned. It both “upheld and loathed’ freedom of the press.
The result was totalitarianism and total muddle. In the following years, the totalitarian State increasingly turned from a deceptive friend of the press to a sworn enemy of liberty, morphing into a monster that swallowed up all genuine aspirations for freedom. Thus hope turned into disillusionment and the EPRDF’s practice with regard to the press and journalists turned from one of arbitrator to that of brutal persecutor.
The rest is history. In this connection and just to refresh our memory, particular mention should be made of a key provision in the first Press Law. “Any press and its agents shall, without prejudice to rights conformed by other laws, have the right to seek, obtain and report news and information from any government source of news and information.” says Article 8, Subtitle 1.7 of the proclamation. Critics of the Press Law pointed at this particular provision to demonstrate their disillusionment as journalists increasingly found it difficult to gather information from official sources.
This was a legitimate criticism because government officials themselves often admitted that their offices were closed to media inquiries. “Big Brother is watching”, writes George Orwell in “Nineteen Eighty Four”. Big Brother was watching who was daring to open their door to press inquiries. No one dared and no one dares! Later on, legal criticism of the press proclamation started among journalists of the private press as well as from academics.
They pointed at particular provisions like Article 15 (1) of the proclamation that provides “for special prior restraint by giving the prosecutor the power to enjoin the dissemination of any illegal press product that may cause serious damage. Critics of article 15 (1) said that, “As far as the prosecutor can prevent the dissemination of ideas by enjoining the press product it can be considered as a prior restraint, as the public is prevented from getting the information contained in the press product.”
The most important restriction on the freedom of the press in Ethiopia is however found under article 10 of the Press Law which provides for the responsibilities of the press in ensuring the lawfulness of the contents of the press products. Amnesty International once noted that, “The courts dealing with Press Law cases have signally failed to uphold press freedom.
They have interpreted the Press Law and other laws relating to the press without taking sufficient account of the government’s obligations under the constitution and international human rights treaties to protect the rights to freedom of opinion and expression. The fairness of the court hearings and trials have also been open to question.” As a result of this, the State had at its disposal an array of legal weapons that it could throw at the fledgling private press that became increasingly critical of the government’s policies. The totalitarian State had no mercy because one of its key functions was the total control of all means of communication and expression.
This was another function of the “terrorist State” as Dr. Abiy pointed out in his speech in parliament where he denounced the EPRDF state as a terrorist one. As an instance of a more articulate criticism of the Press Law, it would be relevant here to quote at some length from a study by the Forum for Social Studies (FSS), and more particularly from the part dealing with the Press Law.
“The Press Law itself is full of restrictive provisions and tends to impose the “most undemocratic” and heavy-handed penalties for offenses or breaches that are considered petty even by the laws of the country. Article 8, sub-title 3 of the press law introduced a distinction between news and information when it declared that the press had no right to seek, obtain and impart information designated secret by other laws and organs of the government. In contradistinction to Article 8, sub-title 1, this “odious and inexcusable tax upon political knowledge” denies the press an important source of hard news.”
The government also ignored criticisms by foreign media and human rights organizations against certain prohibitive provisions of the Press Law and practices as misguided reactions and baseless allegations.
Appeals by human rights and media watch groups to improve certain aspects of the Press Law were also shunned by the government. The road so far traversed by the Ethiopian press has been bumpy. tortuous and filled with legal mines that were intentionally planted to detonate at any time. Many of the mines had detonated indeed leading to many casualties among the journalistic fraternity.
In this sense, the reform measures promised by the new Prime Minister to guarantee genuine freedom of the press is a welcome development that deserves critical support and needs to be implemented as soon as possible. It is legitimate to be suspicious of promises in this country because they have often turned to be deceptive. Most journalists expect a new policy to be enshrined soon although there is no tangible sign in this direction so far. Discussions are not taking place in this vital area of democratic transformation. The free press needs the right laws and guarantees that permits it to function without fear or favor.
It is therefore legitimate to expect the legalization and institutionalization of press freedom sooner than later. Dr. Abiy’s government is thus expected to abolish all EPRDF initiated or promulgated laws regarding the press. It is expected to denounce what the previous EPRDF leadership sycophantically or cynically called “developmental journalism” as sheer ideological nonsense or as a thinly disguised tool of media control.
The new regime is expected, among other things, to withdraw completely from all media activities and hand over the existing media outlets to private operators that can enjoy full freedom under the law. All EPRDF-owned media outlets need to be privatized because they were established as cash cows for the ruling party and/or serve as models of a cowed and subservient media. In other words, these institutions were and still are active collaborator in grand corruption that finance a corrupt and brutal State.
Last but not least, the new policy is expected to put an end to past government abuses against journalists that earned the country the notorious nickname as a “prison house of freedom”. It is only when these and other radical measures are taken that genuine press freedom becomes embedded into the daily lives of journalists and society at large. Democracy and freedom of the press are interdependent and mutually complementary.
However this can only be realized if and when the press is allowed to terminate its journey along the tortuous and painful road of the past, and secure democracy by avoiding the beaten track of dictatorship. And this should happen today or now; and not tomorrow or in the future.
Hearld January 20/2019
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
