10 eSwatini National Police Commissioner, William Tsintsibala Dlamini CREDIT: INDEPENDENT NEWS of harassing journalists. In July 2019, detectives investigating the former intelligence boss, Isaac Kgosi on allegations that he unlawfully revealed the identity of intelligence agents, raided the home of Tsaone Basimane Botlhe, a political reporter for Mmegi media house, confiscating all her computers and mobile phones. She was being investigated for allegedly receiving “pictures of DISS agents”, cautioned against informing her editor of the raid, and her colleagues threatened with arrest for visiting her home. This incident was strongly condemned by the Botswana Media and Allied Workers Union (BOMAWU) who expressed their worry regarding continued harassment of journalists by law enforcement agencies. In April 2020, the Committee to Protect Journalists appealed to Eswatini police to stop intimidating and harassing local journalists for reporting critically on King Mswati III and his government, following a police raid on the home and confistication of three mobile phones, a laptop and work documents of Eugene Dube, the editor and publisher of the privately owned news website Swati Newsweek. The National Police Commissioner, William Tsintsibala Dlamini stated that the police would come down hard on journalists writing negatively about the monarch. Some of these journalists have fled to South Africa, including Zweli Martin Dlamini, who is on the police’s wanted list for his March 2020 reports that King Mswati III had contracted Covid-19 and was in self isolation, and other articles portraying the contrast between the king’s lavish lifestyle and that of the impoverished citizens. In Malawi, MISA documented 20 attacks on journalists between 2019 and the first half of 2020, prompting the media organisation to write an open letter to then President Peter Mutharika and the Inspector General of Police, highlighting violations which threatened the media’s work, and calling for the adoption of measures to ensure safety and security for journalists. The security incidents included the May 2020 attack by thugs on a vehicle that Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) and Times Group reporters were travelling in during the then Tonse Alliance running mate Saulos Chilima’s tour of Mulanje and Phalombe. Cameraperson Hezekiah Namonde of ZBS suffered hand injuries during the assault whilst reporters Emmanuel Chibwana of ZBS and Jameson Chauluka and Lazarus Nedi of Times Group escaped unhurt. In the same month, another group of thugs assaulted Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC)