The Mpumalanga high court has declined an attempt by the eSwatini government to declare the kingdom’s journalists living and working in SA, who are critical of the king and kingdom affairs, terrorists, saying this would offend SA law.
This is after the prime minister of eSwatini, on behalf of eSwatini’s Head of State, King Mswati III, asked the court to clamp down on news sites domiciled in SA, Swaziland News and its editor, Zweli Dlamini.
The Monarch asked the Mpumalanga court to find Swaziland News and Dlamini to have committed acts of terrorism under several sections of the Kingdom’s laws.
It said the publication and Dlamini did this by “publishing false allegations against King Mswati of eSwatini and the soldiers and police of that government in the articles of November 25 2022 and November 13 2022 in relation to the terrorist activities of the organisation known as the Swaziland International Solidarity Forces described in those articles.”
The articles referred to are the 2022 reports by Swaziland News about government crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in the kingdom, which led to at least 45 deaths.
In 2022, then prime minister Cleopas Sipho Dlamini published an order declaring Swaziland News, and Dlamini, “terrorist entities”.
He made the order on the recommendation of the attorney-general, Sifiso Khumalo, who accused Dlamini of publishing articles “that instigate violence, the burning of public and state property, the seizure of state power and the overthrow of lawful government”.
Dlamini has been staying and working in SA since 2018, when he fled his native land after Swaziland News was banned under eSwatini’s Registration of Books and Newspapers Act.
Another remedy the Monarch sought from the Mpumalanga high court against Dlamini and Swaziland News was to interdict them from publishing “false allegations against King Mswati of eSwatini and the soldiers and police of the Eswatini government in relation to the terrorist activities of the organisation known as the Swaziland International Solidarity Forces on the website of the first respondent or any other way in the Republic of SA.”
While the court declined declaring the news publication and its editor as terrorists and interdicting them doing their work, it was critical of their coverage of events in eSwatini.
“The source of the information in the articles are not disclosed by Swaziland News. The timing of the articles coincided with the public uprising in eSwatini. No comment was sought from the eSwatini government prior to the publication of the articles. The tone of the articles was extremely critical and stated as fact. No balanced view was given,” reads the judgment .
“The articles were not independent and constituted the most severe criticism against the king and the eSwatini government. The timing of the articles, coinciding with the public uprising, was clearly aimed at or had the potential or indeed did fuel the perpetrators of the uprising and clearly sought to gain support for the dissidence,”
“Having regard to the factors to be considered in order to determine whether the articles were reasonable, I conclude they were not. To the extent that Swaziland News sought to rely, albeit not set out explicitly that the articles were reasonable, I find that the articles were unreasonable. No defence is established by Swaziland News in this regard.”
Reporters Without Borders in its 2022 world press freedom index ranked eSwatini 131 out of 180 countries, stating that the country prevented journalists from working freely and independently by maintaining total control over the broadcast media, infiltrating the newsroom and spying on, arresting and harassing journalists.
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