Guest Writer
Fus here in Eswatini, the uprising of June 2021 put the nail in the coffin of the traditional media. The influence of online media, which quickly sprang up during that time, as the vehicle that perpetuated the civil unrest cannot be underestimated.
Government’s bid to control the flow of information on online platforms during this most difficult time for Eswatini, by shutting down the internet on several occasions did not help because, by doing so, this had the unintended consequence of affecting commercial transactions, even across our borders, and threatened the broader economy. It was bad.
I am one of those journalists who have suffered at the hands of government excesses in its bid to suppress freedom of expression. I spent 15 months in prison for exercising this right between March 2014 and June 2015.
The government has never acknowledged the wrong that was done to me and my co-accused, the late Thulani Maseko, despite the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) conceding that our prosecution was wrong and the Supreme Court making a legal finding to that effect too.
One can only surmise that government’s reaction to our misfortune was informed by a belief that independent media in Eswatini will not be tolerated, regardless of the facts. Put differently, the message is that facts do not vindicate the truth.
To underscore this point, let me quote Judge Mpendulo Simelane when he sentenced Thulani and I to two years in prison on July 17 2014. He said: “Some journalists have this misconception that just because they have the power of the pen and paper they can say or write anything under the disguise of freedom of expression. This is a fallacy.”
Please note that Maseko was a lawyer who dedicated his life to human rights and it was I the journalist.
The judge, therefore, took time off to single out the media on free speech rights in order to send a message to all of us that such freedoms are, indeed, a fallacy. That’s how I understand this quotation.
OR
Why am I telling you this? I bring it up because I want to highlight the fact that the rise of digital news dissemination in Eswatini also brought its fair share of problems, when you look at the other side of the coin.
The Government of Eswatini had already been working on legislation to control the exchange of information online, and particularly social media platforms when the uprising began in June 2021.
At the time, I wrote a few articles, published in the Times of Eswatini, where I pointed out the threat of such laws as the Computer Crime and Cybercrime Bill of 2020 and the Data Protection Bill of 2020 posed to information dissemination and freedom of expression. I also pointed out the unintended dangers these proposed laws posed to society.
In sum, in the form these Bills were presented they threatened to criminalise all forms of digital expression in a country which wants to be seen by the world as tolerant of diverse views, even if there are no political parties participating in the governance of the country.
However, during the uprising of 2021, the major online publications that cropped up to push for change, I must say, also relied heavily on disinformation and downright lies to get an edge over what one could refer to as the mainstream media.
For instance, in the early days of July 2021, it was widely reported that King Mswati had fled the country and had gone into exile as the civil unrest gained momentum. In other words, the world was told that