May 29,2002 was again celebrated in Nigeria as an anniversary of democracy day. As part of activities making the Day, Nigerians got a breathing breath from military dictatorship, supporters of President Obasanjo were reported to have shed tears at a viewing of a documentary about the mans journey to Abacha´s "Gulag" and out. The reality however is that not much lesson has been learnt, human right violations are still commonplace and the media is not spared in Nigeria and elsewhere.

This article attempts a comprehensive analysis of the various international guarantees for freedom of expression, opinion and the media vis-à-vis increasing global press freedom violations. The article argues that transition from dictatorial rule to democracy in developing countries, especially Nigeria, has not guaranteed freer press as would be expected. Similarly, the climate of insecurity generated by the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent war on terrorism have provided governments in both developing and developed nations an opportunity to adopt measures that violate media rights in a variety of new ways.

In 1966, two international covenants on human rights were adopted by the UN General Assembly and opened for signature by states, translating the rights established by the UDHR into clear binding obligations for all states parties. Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) guarantees freedom of expression, again in terms similar to those found in the UDHR.

The (first) Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, adopted at the same time, grants a right to individuals to appeal directly to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC). Over 90 states are now parties to the Optional Protocol and the Committee has an increasingly heavy caseload. Regional systems for the protection of human rights have been established in both the Americas and Africa, the former providing particularly strong protection for freedom of expression.

In addition, a number of strong declarations on promoting an independent and pluralistic media adopted under the auspices of the UN and other intergovernmental bodies, for example by UNESCO seminars in Sana'a, Windhoek and Sophia, have helped to strengthen this seeming protection of freedom of expression.

While one cannot deny the fact that the array of international legal protection for freedom of expression has proved far more effective and important than anyone could have imagined 50 years ago when the UDHR was first adopted, a global increase in press freedom violations despite this impressive body of international law, supported by a large number of intergovernmental declarations and documents, has not created an environment in which one can say that the press is free.

Attacks on the Press in 2001, a publication of Committee To Protect Journalists, documents over 500 cases of media repression in 140 countries, including assassination, assault, imprisonment, censorship, and legal harassment. In documenting these attacks, Committee To Protect Journalist’s (CPJ) report notes several alarming trends.

A total of 37 journalists were killed worldwide as a direct result of their work in 2001, a sharp increase from 2000 when 24 were killed. Similarly, a study by Reporter San Frontiers, the Paris based international free expression group, by the end of 2001, 31 media practitioners and promoters of free expression, have been killed. Another 489 suffered arrests during the year out of which 110 remained in prison at end of that year.

This figures of the states of press freedom and freedom of expression during that year from the group shows that 716 journalist were threatened or attacked, while 378 journalists suffered censorship. Compared to previous years 2000, there is an obvious increase in media rights violation for in that year, only 329 journalists were arrested, 510 attacked and 295 suffered censorship.

After four years of steady decline, the number of journalists in prison jumped nearly 50 percent - from 81 in 2000 to 118 in 2001. More than two-thirds of last year's increase came from little noticed crackdowns in Eritrea and Nepal, carried out after September 11. China, already the world's leading jailer of journalists for the third year in a row, arrested eight more ending the year with a total of 35 journalists behind bars.

Interestingly, not a few of the media rights violations that have occurred in recent years despite the array of international protections for media practitioners are in democratic societies. That the media is still largely muzzled in democratic states thus provides an extraordinary responsibility to human rights organisations that are wont to work under the assumption that once a state transits from some kind of dictatorial rule to sort of democratic governance, the press automatically becomes freer.

True, the guarantees of freedom of expression found in the UDHR, and others are not absolute; each of these instruments provides for a number of potential limitations on the right but Article 29 of the UDHR, for example, permits such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

Given the principle that a free press is of cardinal importance to democracy, and the general believe that the press is the fourth estate of any nation in addition with The Executive, The Legislature and The Judiciary, it is of great concern that several democratic governments have not yet inculcated that obligation on governments to allow private broadcasters, the principle that politicians must tolerate a greater degree of criticism under defamation and related laws than ordinary citizens and the importance of protecting the confidentiality of journalists sources.

Cases of media rights violation in democratic societies have been documented .In 2001, the United States jailed free-lance writer Vanessa Leggett on contempt-of-court charges, joining Cuba, a non-democratic state as the only other country in the Western Hemisphere to imprison journalists for their work. Leggett is believed to have been jailed longer than any other journalist in U.S. history.

European Members of parliament still have a big role to play in determining whether or not the press in the Union will be further muzzled. They have to vote against the article 15 of a proposed amendment to the 1997 European directive on protection of telecommunications data and information which would allow interception, storage and inspection of the content of phone calls, faxes, e-mails and web navigation.
 

It is also on record that a Nigerian judge jailed two journalists for covering proceedings in her courtroom, promising that they would "have plenty to write about" after being locked up with accused criminals. Today in Nigeria, the independent media is still under as much pressure as it was under the military dictatorship of late Sani Abacha. There has been series of media rights violations in Sierra Leone since Tejah Kabbah became president.

In Kenya, the administration of Daniel Arap Moi has promulgated a law that now requires media organisations and publishing houses to register before they could be recognised. The registration fee is so exorbitant that only a few can afford it thereby eliminating alternative view and having a way to monitor or screen out media organisations not in the good books of the ruling "democratic" government.

The recent situation in Zimbabwe, whereby several independent journalists are forced to go-on exile by the democratic administration of Robert Mugabe who expelled foreign correspondents for the way they covered a democratic election. The case of Liberia’s Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism issuance of a May 27 statement declaring that "no more surprise visits to Liberia by foreign journalists will be allowed, is also an obvious violation of media rights in a supposedly democratic setting.

Media practitioners operate in similar situations in several nations that have become democratic. From Tunisia where there are no independent media and where foreign correspondent are kept under surveillance to Eritrea where nine journalists are till in jail since 2001,without any charges.

More interesting however is how the climate of insecurity generated by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and the subsequent war on Terrorism have provided democratic governments with more opportunities to introduce measures that further violate the freedom of the press. Today the United States, which is believed to have the "freest" press and often presented as an example of democracy, is for the first time in decades confronting limits on freedom of the press that one would have expected only from authoritarian regimes.

American media smug reliance on constitutional principles of a free and independent press. As guaranteed by the country’s First Amendment seem to have disappeared into thin air as directives to by Attorney General John Ash croft changes the interpretation of the federal Freedom of Information Act to allow the country’s agencies to deny access more often to public records if a claim of invasion of privacy or a claim of breech of national security can be alleged.

Other violations of media rights by the "greatest" democracy in the world include a new disregard of the 1992 agreement between the media and the Pentagon that provided for pool coverage of military actions. The media has now almost been stripped of the right to know.

Following the example of America, many countries even the democratic ones are now appealing to terrorism to muzzle the independent media. Media practitioners are today expected to first be patriots before being journalists otherwise they could be threatened, harassed, censored, attacked, imprisoned or killed. It is therefore not uncommon to see a situation whereby many media practitioners now do some sort of self-censorship either for the for fear of offending public opinion or for the fear of reprisals which may come in any of the aforementioned forms.

There is a belief that under most democratic governments, media ownership are often left in the hands of private individuals, wit the government leaving them independent. This belief has led to less attention being paid to violations that occupy in democratic states, especially censorships

In its more sophisticated form, censorship is achieved not through the police and prison systems but through capitalist institutions working together to maintain the hegemony of their beliefs. This is made even easier now that the majority of media businesses are owned by a tiny number of industry giants. Whether in individual countries or - increasingly - on a global scale, these cartels effectively control the images and stories through which we understand the world. Instead of a true democratic plurality, we are offered infinite versions of the same product or opinion.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Although one cannot deny the fact that the array of international legal protection for freedom of expression has proved far more effective and important than anyone could have imagined 50 years ago when the UDHR was first adopted, a global increase in press freedom violations despite this impressive body of international law, supported by a large number of intergovernmental declarations and documents, has not created an environment in which one can say that the press is free.

As the arguments in this paper has shown, the fact that many nations have become democracy has not ensured that the everyone got the rights to opinion, which was suppose to include the rights to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through the media.

Obviously therefore, the provisions of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is still constantly violated and recently more so in democratic nation states whose government use the appeal to patriotism to muzzle the independent media, deterring journalists from questioning governments policies.

Similarly, article 9 of the same UDHR, which gives protection against arbitrary arrests and detention, has been constantly violated, even in democratic states as more journalists get arrested, detained and even incarcerated without charges for expressing their opinion.

It becomes obvious therefore that Human Rights Organisations need to constantly monitor events in developing states and states in transition to ensure that governments of these countries do not revert back to dictatorial tendencies, especially against the independent media as many are wont to do.

Also, more pressure needs to be exerted on western governments, to ensure that they do not sacrifice media rights and press freedom on the altar of security and patriotism. Even in a post "September 11" world, where concerns for security has taken needs for "secrecy" to heights, governments of every nation needs to be made to realize that freedom of the press and freedom of opinion may actually be an advantage rather than a handicap in a period of emergency.

June 2002