Silencing the Defenders - Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

which had resulted in two officers being transferred. 71 Similarly in Belize two human rights lawyers,
husband and wife, were arrested and charged with drug-trafficking. The arrests were part of an
ongoing low-level but highly intrusive campaign of police harassment suspected to be linked to their
human rights activities, which included exposing unlawful police conduct. 72
Where activities like honest reporting are well within permissible limits and the state and the police
can invoke no pieces of legislation to prevent committed groups or individuals from engaging in
activities that might lead to exposure of wrongdoing, the resort to use of force is not infrequent. In
Zambia, for example, two people were assaulted by the police for doing nothing more than trying to
take photographs of an officer assaulting a third person. 73 The officers asked one of them to hand
over his camera. When he refused because there was no legal requirement to do so, the officers
pepper sprayed him and beat up the other for attempting to stop the assault.
In the Bahamas in 2006 four journalists were beaten by guards when they attempted to enter a
refugee camp for illegal immigrants from Cuba in order to investigate allegations of mistreatment.
Recording equipment was also confiscated. 74
Impunity in Vanuatu
Impunity for those involved in attacks against media workers in Vanuatu is
commonplace. The Pacific Freedom Forum notes that in many of the Pacific Islands
awareness of the role of the media, particularly with respect to the promotion of
human rights, remains limited. Even journalists themselves tend to accept that abuse
and intimidation is part and parcel of their job with the result that the judicial system
tends not to take those attacks seriously and their right to be treated with dignity
and respect as any other individual remains unacknowledged. Rather than using
public complaints procedures individuals and groups who take offence at what is
printed resort to personal attacks against journalists. 75
In 2009 in Vanuatu, a journalist was beaten up by officers who worked at the
country’s main prison in retaliation for his paper’s coverage of ongoing problems
at the facility. 76 The officers were arrested, after being identified by their victim, but
to date they have not been charged. Transparency International’s Vanuatu office
took up the case and discovered that no action at all had been taken to investigate
those arrested. 77
A reporter with the Lagos-based National Mirror was invited by the independent monitoring commission
to observe the 2008 local council elections in River State, Nigeria, where there were ongoing allegations
of booth stuffing, people being beaten when they tried to cast their vote for the opposition 78 and
other malpractice, supported perhaps by biased policing. When the reporter objected to the police’s
refusal to allow him to enter the commission’s premises he was kicked and punched by around ten
officers. 79 The reporter noted that – unsurprisingly – the assault appeared to be an effort to prevent
criticism of the way in which the elections were being conducted. 80
False News and Defamation
Investigative journalists who dare to make allegations of abuse of position and corruption against
influential people, frequently find themselves at the receiving end of broadly worded laws that contain
catch-all prohibitions on publishing news that will for example, “disturb public order or public peace” 84
and find themselves facing “false news” or defamation suits.
The crime of publishing false news persists in many Commonwealth countries, though it has no place
in the laws of Australia and the UK, and has been struck down as being contrary to constitutional
22 CHRI 2009 REPORT: SILENCING THE DEFENDERS •