Southern Africa: Concern About Human Rights, Media Freedom
17th August 2010

By The Namibian (Tileni Mongudhi)

 

CIVIL society organisations in southern Africa are calling for SADC governments to respect human rights and focus on good governance.

 

They also called for governments that undermine the SADC Tribunal's decisions to be censured.

 

The organisations said they were concerned about the fact that governments were becoming intolerant towards civil society in the region.

 

In a statement presented by four SADC non-governmental umbrella bodies, they stated that there was continued harassment and killings of human rights defenders in some of the SADC states.

 

Citizens in some parts of the region were denied their right to participate in political processes and there was increasing human insecurity in the region, they claimed.

 

The statement further stated that there was concern about restrictive media laws and targeted attacks on the media in some states, especially Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland.

 

The NGOs called for SADC governments to implement the African Union Charter on Democracy and Good Governance and guarantee media freedom.

 

They also called on the SADC heads of state to supervise Zimbabwe's next national elections to prevent state-sponsored violence and ensure compliance with SADC principles and guidelines on democratic elections.

 

They also called for Zimbabwe and Madagascar to be barred from occupying any post on the SADC organ on politics, defence and security.

 

The SADC NGOs also called for the heads of state to pay urgent attention and recognise that the Democratic Republic of Congo and Swaziland were problem cases with increasing human rights violations.

 

The NGOs said repression and harassment were on the increase in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 At least 15 human rights defenders, including nine journalists, have been killed in the DRC in the past five years. Few of these cases have been satisfactorily resolved. 

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