Increasingly there is a need to acknowledge the interconnectedness of the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest. Freedom of expression includes the freedom to articulate viewpoints and engage in peaceful protests. Through peaceful protest, individuals can effectively voice their grievances, contest power structures, and urge for change. In Lesotho, Kopano Makutoane, a student at the National University of Lesotho (NUL), was tragically shot and killed during a demonstration on the university’s Roma campus on 16 June 2022, when police opened fire using live ammunition. Following the announcement that the National Manpower Development Secretariat had cut the monthly stipends of students by more than 50 percent, a number of students marched to the campus to protest this reduction in their allowances. Lesotho’s Transformation Resource Center (TRC), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) denounced the excessive force used by police, particularly the use of live ammunition against unarmed student protestors. They rightly pointed out that the “right to protest, which is part of the right to peaceful assembly, is protected under international human rights law, which recognises the importance of protests, demonstrations, and pickets as a catalyst for social and political change.” In the second half of 2022, anti-government civil unrest and violence associated with the prodemocracy movement, erupted in Eswatini. Multiple anti-government rallies were held by students, police forces, and labour organisations to demand better working conditions and prodemocracy reforms. Authorities bolstered security and sent military soldiers in response to the protests, which allegedly resulted in fatalities. This was the second major political crisis to strike Eswatini in the preceding two years. Multiple waves of protests reportedly resulted in 80 deaths and over 200 injuries between June and October of 2021. In October 2022, protesters and opposition supporters in Malawi marched in opposition to the rising cost of living and suspected corruption. Joshua Chisa Mbele, the chairperson of Action Against Impunity, a network of civil rights organisations that organised the demonstration, accused the government of misusing money Malawi received to combat COVID-19, among other alleged infractions. A protester said that the situation in the country was deteriorating, with food prices becoming too expensive and medication becoming scarce. CONCLUSION In August 2022, thousands of South Africans marched towards the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa, seeking price reductions. Inflation had reached about eight percent, the highest level in 13 years, and around one-third of South Africans were unemployed. Southern Africa is grappling with a complex political, economic, and social crisis that threatens the exercise of freedom of expression, media freedom, access to information and associated rights. This crisis is characterised by numerous interrelated factors, including corruption, political repression, economic instability, and social inequality. We are witnessing an intensifying of crackdown on journalists, human rights activists, leaders of social movements, political activists, and trade unionists who have exposed gross human rights violations, authoritarian tendencies, corruption, lack of service delivery, and social justice issues. Their attempts to hold national governments and leaders accountable for development, good governance, and respect for human rights and the rule of law have been met with violent force, including physical assaults, arbitrary detention, torture, murders, intelligence monitoring, breaches of cyber laws to shut down the internet, and enforced disappearances. Elections, including pre-, during-, and postelection phases, have increased restrictions on association and assembly. This is the treacherous path that the media in Southern Africa is forced to navigate, often finding themselves caught in the crosshairs of power, politics and corruption.(21) Despite the slow recovery from the devastating impact of COVID-19 on its viability, the media in Southern Africa still faces one of its greatest 15