L esotho’s media freedom was on shaky ground in 2014 as the country suffered extreme political unrest, culminating with Prime Minister Thomas Thabane fleeing to South Africa at the end of August. He fled the capital, Maseru, just before Lesotho Defence Force soldiers, led by army commander Lieutenant-General Tlali Kamoli, attacked his official residence and military units surrounded government and police buildings. In this environment we saw no progress towards much needed legal reforms to depoliticise state-owned media and prevent government censorship. Instead, Lesotho’s state of media freedom seems to have backtracked nearly four decades, with increased polarisation of the broadcasting sector along political lines and Lesotho’s one year old Broadcasting Dispute Resolution Panel proving to be crippled by a weak legal framework and lack of financial independence. FREE EXPRESSION AND THE LAW No progress on media law reforms Against a backdrop of political instability and uncertainty, Lesotho’s long awaited media reforms continued to stall in 2014. The package of reforms are the result of almost one and a half decades of discussions between government and media professionals. They were almost passed in 2010 but instead, Cabinet refered them back to the Ministry of Communications. The reforms would have depoliticised government-owned media outlets, re- moved statutes allowing government censorship in the name of ‘national security’ and asssited in the decriminalisaton of speech by moving many slander and libel cases out of the courts and into an arbitration system. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION Political unrest stalls access to information advocacy Despite the Media Institute of Southern Africa Lesotho chapter’s (MISA Lesotho) intensive lobbying and advocacy campaign to pass the Access and Receipt of Information Bill, Lesotho is still without any access to information (ATI) law. The Lesotho Law Reform Commission drafted the Bill in 2000 but it still remains to be approved by Parliament. Supported by the Open Society Initiative in Southern Africa (OSISA), MISA Lesotho collected more than 10,000 signatues in 2014, on a petition to pass the ATI Bill into law. Sadly, the political unrest and worrying signs of instability in the government prevented us from submitting the petition to the Minister for Communication, Science and Technology, Selibe Mochoboroane. Mochoboroane was fired but backed by his political party, which is one of three in the coalition government. He refused to vacate the office, placing a dark cloud over media legal reforms at the government and civil society levels and bringing to a halt recent strides made by access to information advocacy. BROADCASTING Broadcasting dispute resolution panel hampered by lack of resources In July 2013, MISA Lesotho reported So This is Democracy? 2014 31