Silence, silence, silence! This is what is experienced by journalists in
Tanzania during Mwalimu Nyerere regime, whereby
he was the chief editor of everything and no one dared to talk about the government. Expectations
are high among Tanzanians on Magufuli new leadership regime about media freedom
as he is trying to change everything of the past. There were no platforms? ; Transparency? What caused
such silence? This raises key question to meditate, Are Tanzanian media free to
support the national welfare as Magufuli suggests? What is the problem underlying
media freedom in Tanzania today?
Tanzanian media is still not free to exercise their
fourth estate mandate and debate on press even in the Magufuli regime as the Minister
of Information, Culture and Sports, Mr. Nape Nnauye recently announced to the
public the restriction of live broadcasting of Parliamentary issues by any
media in Tanzania.
Although the
constitution of Tanzania provides a foundation for the protection of freedom of
expression in the media, in fact Tanzania has a series of laws that are
continually raised to punish critics of the government. Parliament and courts
are intimidating journalistic freedom. The constitution of Tanzania of 1977
provides basic constitutional guarantees for freedom of expression. Article 18 of the constitution states that every person has the
right to freedom of opinion and expression of his/her ideas, considering the
right to seek, receive and disseminate information regardless of national boundaries.
Tanzania does not have among the legal protection of free expression in the
media. Instead, It has a series of active legal restrictions such as The
National Security Act 1970, Newspaper Act, 1976 and others on freedom of media expression that are raised
with alarming regularity.
Media owners,
advertisers, religion and culture are among the threats hindering press freedom
in Tanzania, however much this goes with performance. The state is just one
among the several political threats to press freedom in Tanzania. The Tanzanian
media are too controlled by limited cultural, business, class interests to build
harmony on action that would benefit people of all backgrounds.
However, various tools of pressure are used in Tanzania
to journalists who express contrary views to those of the state and its agents
are harassed, beaten and in most cases jailed or killed altogether. Good
examples of the journalists who are the victims of those harassments in
Tanzania are Said Kubenea, Ndimara Tegambwage, Abdallah Ulimwengu, and DavidMwangosi among others. Also many newspapers has been banned such as
Mwanahalisi, Mawio, This Day and others approving that Tanzania has not really developed a
sustainable culture of freedom of the press and free expression generally.
Kilimwiko,( 2010), argues that there is little clarity in
public opinion about who are to be the major actors in maintaining a free and
responsible media system in Tanzania. Moreover, lack of knowledge and skills of
what media freedom is, and who are the guarantors of media freedom is the key
question for everyone to swallow.
Although institutions such as MISA Tanzania aremonitoring the violation of media freedom by making some efforts to enable
journalists and media houses to defend themselves against censorship,
monitoring causes of violation of media freedom is needed. Moreover, media
institutions are not often engaging in serious dialogue with leaders regarding
the importance of free and responsive public debate, Tanzania Election of 2015
being a good example.
The media are expected to set the agenda and platform for
debating the development of where the country should go hence journalistic
freedom is essential for agenda setting. This assumes that media have ability
and leadership to set such agenda if indeed however much this is a myth and inconsistency
in Tanzania; hence the need for professionals to introduce effective monitoring
of their own practitioners and maintain independent commissions to sanction
violation of media codes of media ethics.
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