Swazi publications ask courts to overturn ban

Two Swazi publications petitioned the courts on Monday to stop the government from banning them, AP reported. Daily newspaper ‘The Guardian of Swaziland’ and monthly magazine ‘The Nation’ were suspended on 4 May after the government claimed they were not properly registered. Both publications denied the charges. ‘Guardian’ editor Thulani Mphethwa said he believed his publication had been gagged for reporting allegations that an attempt had been made to poison the country’s ruler, King Mswati III. Government officials said the story was untrue. Mphethwa said he had been arrested on 1 May and interrogated by four detectives who demanded he reveal his sources within the royal household. “They accused me of trying to divide the nation,” he was quoted as saying. “I told them matters of the royal family are of public interest and that I would not do the police’s work for them.” Copies of the paper were subsequently seized, and when the paper’s lawyers launched an urgent application to have them returned, Swaziland’s attorney-general gave an order banning it and ‘The Nation’. Mphethwa said he hoped the courts would hear the Guardian’s application to have the ban overturned later this week. Meanwhile, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has denounced the suspensions and has called on the king to unconditionally reverse the decision. In a statement, the CPJ said it was “gravely disturbed by the unwarranted suspensions” and believed that “journalists must be free to report on their governments”. “The freedom to receive and impart information is a right afforded all peoples, regardless of the form of government under which they live, under Article 19 of the Universal of Human Rights,” the organisation said. All political parties are banned in Swaziland and the king appoints all members of parliament. According to the AP report, the country’s leading newspaper, the ‘Swaziland Observer’, was ordered to close last year after reporting on government dissension. Several of the journalists who worked there later founded ‘The Guardian’.