Introduction When local journalist Tumaini Msowoya (Mwananchi newspaper) read the police report on a woman who was wounded on her leg as being the result of ordinary metal fracture, she could not believe her eyes. She decided to follow up the story at the Iringa regional hospital. What she found out was shocking. “The stories aired around town were that a police woman had shot another woman on the leg on grounds of stealing her husband. The hospital reports show that the piece of metal extracted from the leg was indeed a bullet and even the wounded woman’s child, a boy of about 8 years, confirmed that her mother was shot as they were walking along the street”, says Msowoya. When she ran the story, though under a pseudonym, a series of unlucky events ensued. First, she began being hunted by the police, then her home was broken into while she was sleeping and all her working tools (the laptop, a tape recorder, a camera and other equipment worth Tshs3 million (about USD 2000) were taken. It was until she decided herself to go meet the Regional Police Commander when the dust settled. In the period between 2010 and 2011, a series of incidents involving journalists being harassed by the police force, political leaders as well as the citizens themselves have been a common feature in Tanzania. Journalists have their tools broken or taken away from them, arrested, threatened and/or being sued by politicians for large sums of cash, most of which will paralyse media houses if paid. Several cases have been taken to and resolved by the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) and others to court, many of which take time to be ruled. One of the recently resolved cases by the High Court of Tanzania was that involving former minister for good governance, Mr Wilson Masilingi and the local Swahili newspaper, RAI and its contributing columnist Prince Bagenda. The court instructed the accused to pay Mr Masilingi the some of Tshs15 million (about 9000 USD) as damages for publishing malicious and defamatory statements against him. The court ordered RAI newspaper to pay Tshs10 million and Mr Bagenda was supposed to pay Tshs5 million in addition to publishing an apology on the first and second pages of the same newspaper in words that Mr Masilingi would be comfortable with before they are published. The cash compensation was to be done within 14 days after the ruling in addition to publishing the apology. The incidences present another face to a country that boasts itself as being committed to respecting media freedom and freedom of expression and being praised by the international community. Access to information Tanzania is a signatory to international laws on the right to access, receive and impart information. Indeed, the right to be informed and to access and disseminate information is also recognized in Article 18(1) and 18(2) of the Constitution of Tanzania: So This is Democracy • 2011 145