The South African government’s assault on media freedom over the last 18 months has emboldened other African states to further clampdown on free speech said South African National Editors’ Forum chair Mondli Makhanya. Speaking in Cape Town to the Southern African Freelancers Association, Makhanya, who is also editor-in-chief of Sunday Times publisher Avusa, said South Africa’s introduction of the Protection of Information Bill (POIB) and the mooting of a Media Tribunal had an negative effect on freedom of expression in other states on the continent.

The Angola Monitor follows the progress of peace, stability, development and human rights in the country as it struggles to overcome the legacy of nearly three decades of war. Since the first multi-party elections in 1992, we have been monitoring the progress of democracy and peace in the region. The Monitor is produced in English and Portuguese. You can subscribe to the Angola Monitor and get it sent direct to your inbox four times a year.

In this month’s issue:

Dialogue among Civilizations News
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Book Launch
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Exhibition KZNSA Gallery 2011
- Dialogue Among Civilizations Exhibition Leeds 2011
- Profile: Berry Bickle

Women for Children News
- Gabisile Nkosi Remembered (4 February 1974 - 27 May 2008)
- Youth Day 16 June 2011
- “Precious Cargo” by Ernestine White
- DUT Students view on Youth Day 2011

Break the Silence News
- 5th SA AIDS Conference - June 2011
- Art work: Yehoshua Comforting an Aids Victim by Mduduzi Xakaza

General News
- ASJ Conference
- Nelson Mandela Day – 18 July 2011

Journalists Aaron Ufumeli and Lev Mukarati were on 23 July 2011 reportedly assaulted and harassed by suspected Zanu PF supporters who were part of a public hearing on the Human Rights Bill that was being conducted at the Parliament of Zimbabwe in Harare. Ufumeli, chief photographer with Alpha Media Holdings publishers of The Standard, Zimbabwe Independent and Newsday, was manhandled by the mob that tried to grab his camera while the others demanded that he delete the pictures he had taken.

Journalists in Zimbabwe are concerned over a fresh warning that they face being jailed, if they report on issues discussed in cabinet. It is understood that the government plans to use the Official Secrets Act to silence the media, as it forges ahead with its culture of keeping ordinary Zimbabweans in the dark.
Government ministers are said to be getting increasingly uncomfortable with media reports of their deliberations in parliament, especially over issues they disagree on.

This issue of South Bulletin focuses on the adverse effects of the boom and bust cycle in capital flows into and out of developing countries, which has caused adverse effects in many economies. After the financial crisis, capital flows resumed their large surge into some developing countries. This has caused them many problems, such as currency appreciation affecting their trade, excess money, asset price boom and inflation.

A Zambian newspaper editor has appeared in a Lusaka High Court to commence his defence in a defamation suit brought against him by President Rupiah Banda. President Banda, in power for almost three years now, sued The Post editor Fred M’membe and his publication for defamation ahead of the 2008 polls after the paper allegedly said he was 'corrupt and a liar'.

The Protection of Information Bill is back in the spotlight in parliament, with the focus on a new panel that will have the power to decide if information has been wrongly classified. The proposed law - dubbed 'the secrecy bill' - has been widely criticised for giving the state wide powers to classify information, and for punishing people who publish that classified information, even if it is in the public interest. Opposition parties and civil society groups say a key problem in the bill remains: it provides for information to be classified in the interests of 'national security' but it is not clear what exactly national security is.

Supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party on Sunday 24 July assaulted an MP and four journalists as they disrupted a parliamentary committee receiving submissions on a proposed human rights law. Journalists who were caught in the mayhem said a crowd of more than 200 Zanu PF supporters stormed the parliament building singing revolutionary songs. A legislator was dragged out of the building and was repeatedly assaulted. Journalists from privately owned newspapers were also locked inside the building and heavily assaulted.

Malawi journalists were beaten by police in churches and hospitals in Lilongwe, and were blamed for the demonstrations that swept the country last week. The country's radio stations were also shut down in the 'national interest'. Meanwhile, private media houses shut down last week after they heard that their buildings were about to be torched, said Kondwani Munthali, a journalist from Nation Publications.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned sweeping arrests and attacks on journalists, as well as censorship by the administration of Malawi President Bingu Wa Muthiraka against media outlets reporting on nationwide antigovernment protests that erupted on Wednesday 20 July. Police arrested a contributor to Nyasa Times, a UK-based online news site critical of the government, journalist Collins Mtika. Vitima Ndovi, a freelance journalist in the capital, Lilongwe, was also arrested.

The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) has called on the prosecutor general to launch investigations into the forced disappearance of many individuals, including the journalist Reda Helal. On 21 July 2011, 'Al Wafd' Newspaper published a report on an interview with police officer Mahmoud Abdel Nabi, a member of the Honest Police Officers' Coalition in which he said that 'the police killed him [Helal], I know the officer who committed the murder.'

Everyone is trying to hide behind somebody else.

‘We celebrate the victory that the shack-dwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, has won in court today where ALL of the "Kennedy 12" have finally been acquitted of ALL charges against them,’ Bishop Rubin Phillip has said in a statement issued on 18 July. ‘Abahlali's victory today is a victory for all who speak the truth; it is a victory that should give courage to the poor of eThekweni, of South Africa, and the world who organise and mobilise together, and who speak and act for themselves.’

Ron Singer interviews Abiye Teklemariam, founding editor of 'Addis Neger’ (‘New Addis’), which until 2009 was Ethiopia’s leading dissident newspaper.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned a violent attack by members of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) on a Muvi TV crew that included two women that went to Nakachenje, a town to the west of Lusaka, on 18 July to investigate claims that MMD members were illegally seizing and sharing out land. The police, who are investigating the assault, said they arrested two suspects on charges of 'assault, criminal trespass and obtaining money by false pretences'.

A Chinese company has been given a contract to distribute media content in Kenya. The company has got the license to distribute digital broadcast signal, giving it control of key strategic infrastructure and role in Kenya’s transition to digital broadcasting. Pundits are scared that this is a measure by the 'conservative' forces in government to curtail the freedom of the media in Kenya.

ARTICLE 19 says it is extremely concerned by reports of police and army clashes with demonstrators over the weekend of 15-17 July, which resulted in at least two deaths, including the killing of a 15 year old protestor, Hajlaoui Thabet, who was shot in the heart. In addition, ARTICLE 19 says it is equally concerned by reports it has received of attacks on journalists covering protests and police and army clashes with demonstrators in Tunis, on 15 July 2011.

The issue includes:
- ‘This place restored my dignity’: Stories of the Solms-Delta farm workers by Crystal Orderson
- Struggle songs, heritage and reconciliation by Cecyl Esau
- Employment Equity: Ticking Boxes or True Transformation?
- Are we democratic citizens? by Ayanda Nyoka
- South Africa documents the undocumented by Caroline Ruetsch.

Just a few hours before South Sudan's independence, the popular Arabic daily 'Ajras Al-Hurriya' and five English-language newspapers were suspended - a worrying start to the relationship between north and south, report the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Index on Censorship. Sudan's National Press and Publication Council said the papers were closed because the owners and publishers are from South Sudan, and, under the country's Press Law, they must have Sudanese nationality, reports ANHRI.