This week African leaders gather in Johannesburg for the 25th African Union Summit, where they will discuss a range of topics, from ongoing conflicts to trade. What will likely not appear on the agenda, however, are the governance challenges that are holding citizens across Africa back.
Here are five pressing democracy and human rights issues the AU needs to confront as well as recommendations on how to get started:
1. Dismal State of Press Freedom
Over the past decade, press freedom has seen the largest decline of any other fundamental freedom in Africa, according to Freedom in the World 2015. Authoritarian governments continue to use legal pressure, imprisonment, and other forms of harassment to suppress independent reporting. According to the Committee to Project Journalists, 48 journalists were in prison across sub- Saharan Africa at the end of 2014 and 152 journalists were forced into exile between 2009 and 2014 – more than any other region in the world. Even the region’s democracies are taking steps to censor the media. Last year, for example, Botswana used a sedition law to charge an editor and journalist for publishing an article critical of the president. As a result of these negative trends, only three percent of Africans live in countries with a free media.
Recommendation: The African Union should amend Article 12 of the AU Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, which calls on State Parties to promote principles and practices necessary for a democratic culture, to specifically include media freedom. The AU should also include a free press as one of the key conditions necessary for free and fair elections as outlined in the Charter’s Chapter 7.
2. Proliferation of Restrictive Laws
Authoritarian regimes in Africa are increasingly exploiting their country’s legal framework to eliminate opposition rather than relying solely on violence and political suppression. Laws ostensibly designed to regulate civic activity or protect public order are manipulated to restrict the fundamental rights of citizens. Africa has consequently seen an explosion of NGO, public order, and counterterrorism laws that are used to harass and persecute democracy groups and human rights defenders. Ethiopia, for example, used its Anti-Terrorism Proclamation in April 2014 to charge 10 bloggers and journalists with threatening public safety for simply writing about human rights. In Kenya, several human rights organizations recently had their licenses canceled for alleged ties to terrorism – a decision that was eventually overturned by the High Court.