Take it from Eritrea to North Korea and cross to Turkey and back to Equatorial Guinea the obvious sign of repressive nations are threatening jail terms for journalists; restrict Internet to silence press and the masses.
In repressive nations; the masses have no say in how they are governed and face severe consequences if they try to exercise their most basic rights, such as expressing their views, assembling peacefully, and organizing independently of the state. Citizens who dare to assert their rights in these repressive countries typically suffer harassment and imprisonment, and often are subjected to physical or psychological abuse.
In these countries, state control over public life is pervasive, and individuals have little if any recourse to justice for crimes the state commits against them. These countries create a media climate so oppressive that even reporters for state-run news outlets live in constant fear of arrest. The threat of imprisonment has led many journalists to choose exile rather than risk arrest in such nations.
Eritrea for example is Africa’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 23 behind bars-none of whom has been tried in court or even charged with a crime. President Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea has succeeded in his campaign to crush independent journalism. Afewerki scrapped plans in 2011 to provide mobile Internet for its citizens, limiting the possibility of access to independent information. Although Internet is available, it is through slow dial-up connections, and less than 1 percent of the population goes online, according to U.N. International Telecommunication Union figures. Eritrea also has the lowest figure globally of cell phone users, with just 5.6 percent of the population owning one. Eritrea is the only country in Africa where there is no private media organisation.
In North Korea for example, 9.7 percent of the population has cell phones, a number that excludes access to phones smuggled in from China. In place of the global Internet, to which only a select few powerful individuals have access, some schools and other institutions have access to a tightly controlled intranet. And despite the arrival of an Associated Press bureau in Pyongyang in 2012, the state has such a tight grip on the news agenda that newsreel was re-edited to remove Kim Jong Un’s disgraced uncle from the archives after his execution. In North Korea, the young leader Kim Jong Un has executed his uncle, fiancé and several others but the information of these killings were suppressed because he controls the media.
The tactics used by Eritrea and North Korea are mirrored to varying degrees in other heavily censored countries. To keep their grip on power, repressive regimes use a combination of media monopoly, harassment, spying, threats of journalist imprisonment, and restriction of journalists’ entry into or movements within their countries.
In Equatorial Guinea where Theodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo has been president in the past 38 years, the only private media organisation in that country is owned by the president’s son; Theodorino Obiang. Apart from North Korea, Eritrea, China, other countries that use the charge to crush critical voices include Saudi Arabia (third most censored country in the world) under King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who took power in January 2015 after the death of his half-brother, King Abdullah, the ruling monarchy, not satisfied with silencing domestic dissent, teamed up with other governments in the Gulf Cooperation Council to ensure that criticism of leadership in any member state is dealt with severely.
In countries with advanced technology such as China, Internet restrictions are combined with the threat of imprisonment to ensure that critical voices cannot gain leverage online. Thirty-two of China’s 44 jailed journalists worked online.
In Azerbaijan (fifth most censored), where there is little independent traditional media, criminal defamation laws have been extended to social media and carry a six-month prison sentence. Iran, the seventh most censored country, has one of the toughest Internet censorship regimes worldwide, with millions of websites blocked; it is also the second worst jailer of journalists, with 30 behind bars. Authorities there are suspected of setting up fake versions of popular sites and search engines as part of surveillance techniques.
Government harassment and high cost of internet accessibility are tactics used in at least five of the most censored countries, including Azerbaijan, where offices have been raided, advertisers threatened, and retaliatory charges such as drug possession levied against journalists.
Political censorship is alive and well in countries throughout the world. In 2014, Reporters Without Borders designated 19 countries as “enemies of the internet” for actions ranging from Britain’s distributed denial of service attack against Anonymous to North Korea having building its own internal internet and walling its citizens off from the global web.
However, despite the “enemies of the internet, six countries have actively block social media networks around the world including Turkey. Of the six countries, Turkey is the largest exception. Opposed to the other five countries, Turkey is both a NATO member and a hopeful applicant to the European Union. Turkey is also a functioning democracy, a fact which makes its total blockage of social media all the more concerning. Apart from North Korea which is the only country listed that is entirely closed off from social media, in March 2014, Turkey previously banned Twitter in the face of government corruption scandals. Ankara had also blocked YouTube for 30 months after a video insulting the founder of modern Turkey was uploaded to the site. There is a great difference between these countries and Nigeria therefore, repression will be a big battle for Nigeria’s government to win. Since coming to power in May, 2015, this government has progressively intensified various means of limiting press freedom. Out of ignorance and lack of democratic understanding, one senator Bala Ibn Na’allah, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress from Kebbi State, sponsored a bill which was seen as not only a significant clampdown on freedom of speech, but a deliberate targeting of critics of federal government and federal lawmakers and the National Assembly. The power of Naija was quickly activated and that bill was swept under the Red Chamber’s carpet.
The present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has come under severe attack for its inability to fulfil its campaign promises even in the face of unprecedented support it enjoy from the masses. But it’s simply laughable for Mr President to think that increase in data tariff will depopulate the participants on the social media under which his government struggle to stand public criticism.
One aspect of Buhari’s administration that even the hard-line Buharists cannot deny today is his inability to clear the morass of corruption, nepotism, tribalism and other assorted malpractices embedded in our governing system. Under the clueless Jonathan, GSM call rate dropped from over 50kobo/sec to 11kobo/sec, SMS dropped from N11 to N4 and this was not appreciated. During the 2015 presidential election campaign, customised APC GSM credit cards of different values flooded the nooks and crannies of Nigeria; people bought the cards, converted them to data and invaded the social media to campaign for President Buhari, a gesture he acknowledged during his inaugural speech.
Sworn in as president and without any tangible impact on the lives of the people, President Buhari increased the pump price of Gasoline from N87 to far away N145 which we are still buying today and the people did not complain. He has increased the electricity tariff without recourse to its availability and public feeling, a bag of rice which was in the region of N9,000 and N10,000 before Buhari came to power is now N23,000. Virtually prices of all goods have increased under this administration coupled with massive job loss as multinational companies are divesting due to unfriendly business policy.
Early this month, a serving minister under President Buhari Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige has said strike action was an unlawful engagement, threatening members of ASUU with consequences of embarking on strike, just last week, the home of one of the online publishers; Omoyele Sowore of Sahara reporter was invaded by the DSS and his younger brother arrested but was later released. Several journalists are under strict surveillance today. The increment in data tariff from N1, 000-N3, 000 in the case of MTN for example was a ploy to limit social media users which I know the repressible Nigerians will reject out rightly. Are these not signs of a repressive country? Increase in data tariff has more than meets the eye because I sensed freedom of free speech being subverted by this administration. We may be Muslims but not Arabs; we practice democracy and they practice Monarchy, oligarchy and so on, what work there cannot work here.
– Onogwu Isah Muhammed
Lokoja-Kogi State
