Use of penal code against journalists. Unlawful seizure of journalists’ equipment. Make sure that journalists do not face criminal prosecution for his or her work. Botswana should work to carry its criminal laws according to international requirements on freedom of expression. IPI is anxious about the usage of provisions in the criminal code, together with sedition, to charge journalists for their reporting. Editors and journalists report that police and intelligence businesses routinely seize reporters’ equipment – together with cellphones, cameras, and laptops – without any legal foundation or a warrant.

The fitting to access to information held by public authorities is important for the media to perform its important watchdog function. We strongly urge the government to develop this laws in full consultation with home and international stakeholders to ensure it can be successfully implemented and displays established international entry to info standards. Botswana lacks a true public service media. Government control over public media. Instead, the country’s publicly owned media function a mouthpiece for the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP).

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Botswana’s government should affirm its stated dedication to press freedom by shoring up protections for impartial journalism within the country. Throughout our visit, the high-degree IPI delegation, led by former IPI Government Board Chair Markus Spillmann, met with journalists, civil society, government, and members of the diplomatic neighborhood. At the conclusion of these conferences, IPI finds that whereas there’s space for vital media and impartial journalism in Botswana, and whereas recent media law reforms have been seen positively by the media community, further reforms and improvements are wanted in order to strengthen the environment for press freedom and to make sure that every one media in the country are in a position to operate freed from political and authorities interference. The aim of those meetings was to grasp more about the media surroundings and the challenges that journalists in Botswana face in being able to do their work freely, independently, and safely.

We’re deeply involved that a majority of these actions are a form of censorship, surveillance, and intimidation that pose undue restrictions on the press. Even after the federal government rolled back controversial provisions of the 2022 Criminal Procedures and Proof Act that allowed for warrantless surveillance of journalists, stakeholders proceed to voice credible considerations over the expansive and unchecked powers of the government’s intelligence company, Directorate of Intelligence and Security Companies (DISS), and the potential for authorities overreach and abuse. We remind the federal government of Botswana that a free, impartial, and numerous media is essential to upholding a system of impartial institutions and strong checks and balances. Expansive government intelligence apparatus and powers.

Robust reforms are vital in an effort to make sure the country’s public media can operate freed from government and political inference, in accordance with international freedom of expression standards guaranteeing the public’s proper to obtain numerous and unbiased news and information. Nonetheless, quite a few stakeholders highlighted that publicly funded promoting in Botswana is misused as a software of affect and management. The federal government should take concrete steps to enable truthful market situations for private media, together with by ensuring that public promoting is allocated transparently and according to clear and objective standards. As in many media markets, personal media in Botswana rely on promoting income for survival, including state-funded promoting, given the country’s small market. Misuse of government promoting.