Simple rule for survival in Tanzania’s media – whether you are an editor, reporter, columnist, printer, or even news-vendor....be careful what you say.

Thanks to controversial laws on Tanzania’s books, an article considered libellous by the state can get anyone in trouble.

The paper’s saga began December 9, last year after police charged columnist Samson Mwigamba with sedition and later changed it to incitement over an article that claimed the police were often exploited by the government for political purposes.

Mr Mwigamba, who also happens to be an opposition leader, argued that police were used to block demonstrations by his opposition party, Chadema. The police claimed the article incited police, prisons and military officers to withhold their respect and honour to their government, according to media consultant and veteran journalist Ndimara Tegambwage.

Unable to meet the bail conditions, Mwingamba was detained for five days in prison in the capital, Dar-es-Salaam.

A week later, police summoned Mr Absalom Kibanda for three hours of questioning for allowing the column to be published, defence lawyer Nyaronyo Kicheere said. Later, a Dar es Salaam magistrate charged Mr Kibanda with incitement and confiscated his passport.

Although this trend is changing, Mr Kicheere told me, the police in Tanzania often “double as prosecutors. For the Tanzanian police to investigate, arrest, and later turn up in court is not a new thing.”

Just to make sure no one is off the hook, the group managing editor of Mwananchi Communications, which publishes Mwananchi, The Citizen, Sunday Citizen, Mwananchi Jumapili and Mwanaspoti, was also summoned to court for printing the allegedly inciting article.

Journalists walk on eggshells to avoid Tanzania’s litany of legislation. Take the Newspaper Act of 1976: if an article is considered by authorities to have “seditious intent,” it is not only the writer that is affected. The editor, the printer, the vendor -- almost anyone marginally linked to the article -- could face heavy fines and a two-year prison sentence.

Worse, the government can suspend the publication, apprehend the machine that printed the article, and sell it for government revenue. Under these circumstances, who would raise a critical finger?

Surprisingly, many Tanzanian papers do try. Earlier, the former minister of Good Governance, Mr Wilson Masilingi, filed a defamation case against the local Rai newspaper, for a column that accused him of soliciting funds from his voters to buy an apartment, according to local journalists.

The court ordered the paper to pay $9,000 in damages and publish apologies on the first and second pages of the paper in words Mr Masilingi would be comfortable with.

Source:Daily Nation