The media in southern Africa emerged battered and bruised from a year of sustained pressure. A new level of vigilance for the protection of media freedoms and fundamental free expression rights was required of the media during 2006, particularly in South Africa where not a single month passed without the media having to go court to defend its right to keep the public informed. The murders of two Angolan journalists, Augusto Sebastiao Domingos Pedro of the state-owned Jornal de Angola and Benicio Wedeinge of Televisão Pública de Angola, remain unsolved. Official investigations are slow and, while authorities are convinced that these are random crimes unrelated to the work of the journalists, the incidents have left an indelible mark on the psyche of Angolan journalists. The Media Freedom Monitoring programme has developed a sharper programme focus on direct support to media workers and institutions that fall victim to media freedom violations. Whilst the active work of monitoring from a gender perspective, and documenting and exposing media freedom violations will continue, much more emphasis is being placed on pro-active engagement with civil society, governmental and inter-governmental actors to ensure that a more conducive environment is created in which journalists can practice their profession without fear of intimidation. In so doing, the programme has implemented a two-pronged strategy: raising consciousness on the role of the media, the need for civil society actors to respect and protect media and freedom of expression rights, while also equipping journalists with skills on how to fulfil their role. A fundamental strategy of MISA’s advocacy work in this programme is to monitor violations of media freedom and the right to information, and expose the violations with the aim of galvanising support from national, regional and international organisations that support and fight for media freedom. Over the past 12 years, MISA has monitored and produced publications on media violations. In its efforts to monitor and expose media freedom violations, MISA has developed strong ties with regional and international partner organisations that have provided support, exchange of ideas and solidarity. Many media freedom organisations hail MISA’s success in the field and rely on MISA for the action alerts it issues. Media Freedom Monitoring Statistics In 2006 the state of media freedom in southern Africa varied: there were positive steps in Malawi, but a gradual deepening of oppression in Zimbabwe. In most of the 11 countries in which MISA is active, a status quo of either a generally free media environment or restricted media was maintained. Between January and December 2006 MISA recorded a total of 144 media freedom and freedom of expression violations against individual journalists and institutions in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. This represented a decrease by 11 (or 7,6 per cent) from the previous year’s 155. 18 Annual Report 2007