Media bill amendment welcome-says journalists

KIGALI - President Paul Kagame’s move to re-table the media bill has received much acclaim from media practitioners and associations in the country. In an interview with the Sunday Times yesterday, Media High Council (MHC) Executive Secretary, Patrice Mulama said that the President’s move showed that he was willing to listen to major stake holders before signing the bill into a law. “It’s interesting to see the bill going back to Parliament. Though we are looking forward to a new standard law that allows press freedom and protects the media practitioners, we still want it to critically look into and represent stakeholders’ views,” he said. Mulama further said that Parliamentarians should not only critically look into the articles suggested by the President but even additional ones that are subject to misinterpretation. “Some articles such as publication of classified legislature information elicit confusion once the document is translated from its Kinyarwanda version. It sounds like no information in the public realm about the legislature will be published. ” Mulama added that the new law is silent about the decriminalization of defamation in journalism. “Defamation should not hold a jail term as the current media law suggests rather, as proposed, the bill should increase a financial penalty. Criminalizing defamation hinders the practise of journalism, it hinders self expression. Should this prevail, it will be hard to report about cases such as abuse of office.” Mulama pointed out that as Rwanda aims at full integration into the East African Community, the law should seek to conform to that of its counterparts. This, he said, will go a long way in harmonizing all the institutions in all the involved countries. “We are asking Parliamentarians to look into the MHC bill as well as it also has omissions and corrections to be addressed. There is a question such as membership of MHC board that the bill is silent on.” In a separate interview the President of the Rwanda Journalists’ Association, Gaspard Safari, said the re-tabling of the Media bill in Parliament was both welcome and necessary. “The president’s move to table this bill again for amendment is a step in the right direction. It means that our views as stakeholders are being considered which goes to compliment the work the media practitioners are doing,” he said. Safari pointed about that following deliberations with regional media monitoring agencies and making comparative analysis of other media laws in the region, the Rwandan media bill as it is seems to be 80 percent okay. “That’s why we felt the need to lobby for more changes and now that the Bill is back on the table we hope that our suggestions will be considered.” He added that he did not think it was mandatory for all media heads to be part of the commission in charge of the changes so long as the documents tabling all journalists’ recommendations would be deliberated upon. “The major articles we needed changed such as definition of the journalist, level of education and the grace period for everyone to attain the required education levels have been changed and I am confident our other recommendations will also be put under deliberation,” Safari said. Safari also expressed his hope that the recommendation document that the media practitioners have compiled would be admitted in the commission charged with the Bill changes. Ends