Bogus operatives threaten security of Tanzania media

Adam Musa is a journalist and community psychologist. The opinions expressed are his own.

DAR ES SALAM, Tanzania - Daudi Mwangosi, a journalist who worked for the Channel Ten television station was killed in September at Nyalolo Village in Mufundi District, Iringa Region.

A Field Force Police Unit’s approach to a political rally organised by Chadema led the innocent journalist to be unfairly “charged and sentenced” to death while in the line of duty.

Mwangosi was shot with a teargas canister at close range by police who were trying to disperse a gathering at a political event. It ripped through his stomach and he died in great pain.

This dehumanised murderous approach is harmful to say the least. Any sober mind would doubt the sanity of police training, code of ethics and leadership.

It is not the first time such actions orchestrated by the police and politicians have led to bizarre incidents which have left the media community in Tanzania shaken.

In one incident reported by the Tanzania Legal and Human Rights Centre, an Iringa region police officer crushed a television camera belonging to ITV and Radio One reporter Laurian Mkumbata.

Journalists’ working environment seems be worsening day by day with few appreciating their work, while others demean it whenever they can.

Behind the challenges journalists face are individuals, highly placed in state departments, including politicians and police operatives, who are actually supposed to protect the writers.

Media watchdog Reporters without Borders (RWB) ranked Tanzania 34th on its Press Freedom Index for 2011-2012.

Over the past few years, a journalist could operate without much fear and intimidation from neither the state nor the populace.

Tanzania’s Home Affairs minister Emmanuel Nchimbi has called an inquiry. His statements indicate that the killing of Mwangosi has not only shamed the police force, but also the rest of the government.

With a community policing campaign in place, intended to help control crime by reducing fear in neighbourhoods, the force seems to be preaching one philosophy and implementing something else.

The 2002 Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa provides for the freedom of expression and information as a fundamental and inalienable human right and an indispensible component of democracy.

Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights of 1981 guarantee the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

At the national level, Article 18 of the 1977 Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, provides every citizen with the right to give an opinion and receive any information of public interest and pertinent to the welfare of the nation.

But attacks targeting journalists are not new throughout the world; they have rocked Mexico where there are rampant drug cartels, developing countries and recently the Middle East – especially in Syria where 11 journalists have been reported killed in 2012.

Syria ranks second after Somalia where 13 journalists have been killed this year, according to RWB.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 19 journalists have been killed since November, and that the Middle Eastern state is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists.

Most recently, on Sept. 19, Maya Naser, a correspondent for Iran's English-language Press TV, was shot dead in Syria while covering explosions in Damascus, according to the news service.

The media commands huge power which is meant for regulating day-to-day activities of the state for it to be governable and accountable to the populace.

But when the state harasses the media personnel through gross incompetence of its mechanisms such as the police, coverage of news ceases and government programmes end up falling by the wayside.

A modern state is actually non-existent without news media and social networks playing their vital role of observing the rule of law and order via television, radio, newspapers and the Internet.