Chad: After a ban on broadcasting audiovisual content, RSF calls on the HAMA to regulate the media rather than restrict it
Online media outlets in Chad have been banned from broadcasting audiovisual content since 4 December, at a time when the country is gearing up for elections. The decision has provoked an outcry from the media community. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the High Media and Audiovisual Authority (HAMA) to reverse its decision, and on all relevant parties to resume dialogue so that the right to information can be restored in full.
Update on 20 December 2024: After this article was published, RSF learned that on 20 December the Supreme Court of Chad ordered the immediate suspension of the HAMA’s decision to ban online media outlets from broadcasting audiovisual content.
Chad's online media outlets are on strike. For the past ten days, approximately forty of them have been protesting against the HAMA imposed ban on broadcasting audiovisual content since 4 December.
While the regulator's decision is motivated by a desire to regulate a practice that has become commonplace — the mass reposting of videos created by external sources without the author's permission — it significantly restricts the activity of online media, which can now only produce written content because they have also been ordered to stop broadcasting the audiovisual content they produce themselves.
HAMA President Abderamane Barka referenced Articles 5 and 26 among others related to the creation of online newspapers under Law No. 31 of 3 December 2018, which governs the written press and electronic media. These provisions “do not permit the broadcasting of audiovisual content [editor's note: by online media].” Yet Article 25 of this law states that online media may produce content “essentially using the written and audiovisual media.”
For this reason, HAMA's decision is considered a violation of law governing the written and electronic press, particularly by the Chad Online Media Association (AMET), which referred the matter to the administrative court. On 18 December, the court declared itself unfit to hear the case and asked the association to refer the matter to the Supreme Court. “We did so immediately,” AMET vice-president Djimet Wiche told RSF.
As a regulatory body, HAMA's mission is to regulate the media, not preventively restrict it. There is a fine line between the two that must be respected if we want to guarantee freedom of the press in Chad. While broadcasting content without the consent of its producer is set to be prohibited, RSF is asking the HAMA to amend its decision by refraining from prohibiting online media from broadcasting and producing their own audiovisual content. We call on the various parties involved to engage in a frank, beneficial dialogue ito calm a situation that has become critical for citizens’ access to information.
These restrictions are taking place during an electoral campaign for the legislative and local elections, scheduled for 29 December. Earlier this month, the HAMA also decided to suspend interactive broadcasts in all public and private media during the election campaign, arguing that they “do not have sufficient human resources to produce interactive broadcasts during the election period that can respect the principles of balance, fairness and pluralism.” The same decision was also taken last April, on the eve of the presidential election.
