MISA Regional Annual Report 2023 Introduction In 2023, MISA Malawi continued to lobby for policy and law reforms to ensure a free media operating environment in Malawi. In the year, MISA Malawi managed to engage with President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, through a World Press Freedom Day breakfast meeting. The Chapter reminded the President of the grey areas in the media, freedom of expression and access to information landscape. On digital rights, the National Assembly passed the Data Protection Bill, a positive step in protecting personal data and guaranteeing privacy. Despite these positive developments, looking at the broader media operating environment in 2023, one would argue that it was, to a large extent, another year of persistent and unwarranted hostility towards journalists. Operating environment public. These attacks have a chilling effect on the practice of journalism and promote self-censorship, which is the antithesis of democracy. • • • MISA Malawi registered a number of attacks against journalists, which threaten a free, independent and pluralistic media. As alluded to above, there was persistent hostility towards journalists. In 2023, MISA Malawi registered cases of arbitrary arrests, harassment and assault of journalists for merely doing their job. MISA Malawi recorded eight cases where more than 10 journalists were attacked. However, no perpetrator was arrested or prosecuted for the crimes against journalists. The perpetrators of violence against journalists in the year under review were diverse and included police officers, political party supporters, university students, football club officials and supporters and ordinary members of the Country Reports Snapshots • • Police in Lilongwe on February 9, 2023, detained Dorica Mtenje, a reporter for an online publication Maravi Post, over a story published in January 2023. Mtenje was held at the Malawi Police Service (MPS) headquarters in Lilongwe for several hours. More than 15 Malawi Congress Party (MCP) supporters assaulted Times Group photojournalist Francis Mzindiko during President Lazarus Chakwera’s official opening of the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) Complex in Blantyre on Wednesday, May 17, 2023. The assailants also damaged the journalists’ equipment. On Saturday, August 12, 2023, police at Area 30 in Lilongwe (Malawi Police Service headquarters) summoned the editor of an online news site, The Atlas Malawi, Chancy Namadzunda, over a story that the site published on August 11, 2023. The story was about businessman Abdul Karim Batatawala, and police were acting on what they said was the complaint he lodged. In their phone calls to Namadzunda, police officers accused the media platform of defamation. On August 16, 2023, some people threatened and deleted pictures and videos from GBS TV’s Vanwek Mumbwa’s phone during a public auction at the Administrator General’s office car park in Lilongwe. They accused him of taking pictures and videos of the auction. Silver Strikers Football Club coach and supporters verbally and physically 23