The state of media freedom in Tanzania

Abstract

Although the constitution of Tanzania provides a foundation for the protection of freedom of expression in the media, in fact, Tanzania has a series of laws that are continually invoked to punish critics of the fifty-year-old hegemony of the CCM government. The courts and parliament are fundamentally hostile to journalistic freedom. Although institutions such as the Media Institute of Southern Africa in Tanzania are monitoring these violations of media freedom and making some efforts to enable journalists and media houses to defend themselves against the corruption spreading out of governmental circles, what is needed is a coordinated, consistent, long-term effort to monitor the deeper causes of the violations of media freedom. The present article proposes that there must be a coherent, agreed-upon set of concepts and concrete guidelines for improving media freedom, involving the legal profession and institutions doing research on the development of democratic governmental institutions. The present article reports a base-line study measuring the present state of media freedom and recommends that this monitoring be repeated to measure the progress and problems of media freedom in Tanzania