mentary to the LCA’s efforts. Mostly, the activities consist of training heads of radio stations and political programme presenters. While these efforts are important there is a need for longer tem solutions and training programmes for the media. There was a small victory for media freedom in the broadcasting sector in 2014, when Lesotho Television, a state television broadcaster run under the Lesotho National Broadcasting Service, was allowed to briefly cover a High Court case. Justice T’seliso Monaphathi permitted the television cameraman to take shots just minutes before he presided over a fraud case involving former Lesotho’s minister of finance Timothy Thahane. This development gives hope to the media since, according to the High Court Act 1978 the judge has powers to order everyone to clear the court if he finds it fit. Lesotho television stations have never before been allowed to cover court proceedings. JOURNALIST SAFETY Threats and physical attacks used to prevent journalists from doing their jobs As in 2013, there were again this year examples of journalists being physically assaulted, threatened and unjustly detained in the course of doing their jobs. On 17 July 2014, four unknown men attacked Ts’enolo FM, a private radio station in Maseru. The men assaulted a presenter on duty named Mohau Toi and vandalized radio equipment worth over R100,000.000. According to the radio station owner, Mr. Mohau Kobile, the incident was politically motivated and he suspected the All Basotho Convention (ABC), a political party lead by the Prime Minister of Lesotho, since Kobile says Thabane is angry that Ts’enolo FM presenters openly criticise him on air. There is an unfortunate history of both government officials and private citizens in Lesotho responding to media criticism with punitive lawsuits. Kobile said Prime Minister Thomas Thabane verbally attacked the radio station during two ABC political rallies in 2014 and threatened to have his son, Potlako Thabane, beat Kobile. Responding to Kobile’s accussations, the Secretary General of the ABC, Samonyane Ntsekele, said his political party was not associated with any criminal actions and if they had anything against Ts’enolo FM they would take legal action. There is an unfortunate history of both government officials and private citizens in Lesotho responding to media criticism with punitive lawsuits. In the wake of the political unrest in August and June 2014 – an incident the Prime Minister described as an attempted military coup – two journalists were arrested over a story published in the Lesotho Times edition of 19-25 September. The So This is Democracy? 2014 33