SECTOR 1 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: Score of previous years: ✓ ✓✓ ✓ ✓✓✓✓✓✓✓ ✓ 2.3 2006: 2.8; 2008: 2.4; 2010: 2.7; 2012: 2.5; 2015: 2.7 1.2 The right to freedom of expression is practised and citizens, including journalists, are asserting their rights without fear In 2017, Tanzania momentarily banned four newspapers, the most in a single year in the recent history of the country. This brought to five the number of publications banned within two years and exemplified an increasingly adverse and challenging environment for the practise of journalism and the operation of news outlets. This was followed by a warning and reminder on the part of the president that news reporting in Tanzania is supposed to be ethical. Henry Maina, Regional Director of Article 19 Eastern Africa, a media rights NGO, observed in October 2017 that, ‘The banning of newspapers is an attack on media freedom in the country and serves to undermine the media’s role as a watchdog in a democratic society. It is a great concern that Tanzania appears to be declining on its commitment to guarantee freedom of the media by resorting to imposing arbitrary bans on media organisations. Issuing bans such as this is also likely to result in self-censorship.’4 Panellists said the government has used both repressive laws and its sweeping powers to trample upon the exercise of freedom of expression. Among the most notorious tools in the hand of the authorities is a new law that bans the unauthorised use of official statistics. A 2018 amendment to the National Statistics Acts (2015) requires authorisation from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) before publishing official statistics; the government claimed that these reforms were needed to protect the factual integrity of statistics. The change has been widely condemned as counterproductive5 but has remained in force. In March 2019, among other reasons, the law was used to temporally ban the Citizen for publishing an unauthorised exchange rate between the TZS against the USD.6 Authorities held that the newspaper had been suspended for repeatedly spreading false and seditious information. However, a panellist said, 4 5 6 In https://www.article19.org/resources/tanzania-ban-on-newspapers-raises-concerns-for-press-freedom/. See: World Bank (2018). World Bank Statement on Amendments to Tanzania’s 2015 Statistics Ac. Available online at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2018/10/02/world-bank-statement-on-amendments-to-tanzanias-2015statistics-act. Last accessed on 20 May 2019. See Daily Monitor (available online at https://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Tanzania-bans-Citizennewspaper/688334-5002850-r04jl4z/index.html) and CPJ (available online at https://cpj.org/2019/03/tanzania-citizen-7day-publication-ban.php) Both reports last accessed on 20 May 2019. 13 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER TANZANIA 2019