SENEGAL

President urged to reject broadcasting law passed by parliament

Condemning a broadcasting bill passed by
Senegal's national assembly on 21 December as
"poorly drafted, ambiguous, unfair and
repressive," Reporters Without Borders today
urged President Abdoulaye Wade to refuse to sign
it into law in order to restore some calm to the
ongoing debate about press law reform.

Approved by just 11 votes to 2 in a 120-member
parliament, the law would create a National
Council for the Regulation of Broadcasting (CNRA)
which, in Reporters Without Borders' view, would
probably threaten press freedom. Made up largely
of personalities chosen by the president with no
connection to journalism, it looks as though the
council would function as a supreme tribunal for
monitoring and punishing radio and TV stations.

The government's declared aim of "contributing
pragmatic responses to the challenges of a new
radio and TV landscape" will not be achieved,
Reporters Without Borders believes.

The law is vague about the CNRA's composition.
Named by the president, members are supposed to
come from such backgrounds "human rights"
movements, "women's groups" and the "elderly."
Only one of its nine members will be a
"broadcasting professional." It will be able to
impose punishments ranging from temporary closure
to exorbitant fines of up to 10 million CFA
francs (more than 15.000 euros).

According to the bill, this unrepresentative body
will be empowered to ensure that broadcast media
content "adheres to the rules of professional
ethics and conduct, including respect for the
institutions of the republic, private life, and
the honour and integrity of the individual; and
respect for national unity, territorial integrity
and the republic's secular nature."

This means that all sorts of subjects will
henceforth be under surveillance in Senegal. Will
the broadcast media be able to talk freely and
critically about the president, the government,
parliament, elected officials and judges (all
"institutions of the republic") without being
punished? Will they be able to criticise nepotism
and expose corruption ("private life" and
"honour")? Will they be able to mention the
separatists in Casamance ("territorial
integrity"). Almost certainly not.

They will not be able to tackle sensitive
subjects without being exposed to sanctions by
this body which has the power to decide if
professional ethics are being respected.
Journalists will have no choice but to fall in
line. They will be able to appeal against the
CNRA's rulings before the council of state, but
appeals will not hold up implementation of the
sanctions, which will go ahead regardless while
the appeal process takes its course. Pay now and
we'll see who is right later.

The rules of democracy clearly establish that the
legitimacy of a media regulatory body must be
recognised by both the government and
journalists. If it is not, every kind of abuse
can be disguised as proper questioning and
challenging, and the mutual recognition between
government and press is broken.

The Council for the Respect of Professional
Ethics and Conduct (CRED), which Senegal's
journalists created on their own initiative,
would be stripped of all its authority. The
Senegal Union of News and Communication
Professional (SYNPICS) set up the CRED because it
rightly wanted to establish that "journalists
only recognise a tribunal of peers in questions
of honour." But you cannot ask that the press to
behave responsibly and at the same time deprive
it of the tools it gave itself to ensure ethical
conduct within the profession.

It would be pointless to decriminalize press
offences, as Senegal has promised to do, if a
bureaucratic entity is created to oversee the
media without their participation. In any crisis,
the government would hypocritically pass the buck
to the CNRA on the grounds of its supposed (but
highly questionable) independence. At the same
time, the bolder broadcast media would do
everything in their power to sabotage an entity
designed to punish them. Nothing would be solved.
The problems would continue.

Law No. 38/2005 creating this council should be
suppressed before it sees the light of day. Today
in Senegal, the government and the press need to
talk calmly to each other. The concrete and
indispensable outcome of such a dialogue should
be the creation of a press regulatory authority
that resembles neither a board of guardians nor a
corporatist assembly. And talks on this should
get under way as soon as possible.

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