Aftermath of 1994
Genocide against Tutsis, Rwanda suffered a lot to rebuild itself. From that time
till today Rwanda is among the fastest growing economy in Africa and It is the first country around the globe to have
many women parliamentarians yet It is ranked a 161st country
on Reporters Without Boarders 2016
rankings on how World countries respect Freedom of Press.
Not only today, Rwanda
have never had a good rank, and today It comes under Burundi, Democratic Republic
of Cong, South Sudan and Palestine
countries which were paralyzed by
wars.
Reporters without Boarders
is ranking Rwanda in last positions however recently on 7th November,2016 Rwanda Governance Board launched a Rwanda Media Barometer shows that
Rwanda press freedom grows to 69.6 % in
2016 from 60.7% in 2013 due to important reforms which were made.
The RGB shows that Economical stable conditions
to media practitioners rose to 67.4% yet Radio K FM of a giant Kenyan media
company ‘’Nation Media Group’’, Exalto TV, Yego TV and RwandaFocus have already closed down in one
year due to the economic related problems and Izuba
rirashe, Pro-governmental, changed a website from print.
And
the rests are struggling to continue their media profession under contracts of devil against Press
freedom which they sign with Government institutions, MTN, TIGO and AirTel,...
In
Rwanda, where I know very well, it is possible a media to sign a contract with
Ministries and other government institutions.
Under these Contracts, a media
house is obliged to report events which were prepared by these institutions and
this results that a media owner prevents his journalists from reporting negatively
to his boss because of fearing to lose his contract and media houses choose to
report good and close eyes before serious issues which are happening in the
institution or company.
For far
journalistic investigation, Journalist report what is happening among low citizens
and to point a finger on what is happening o among top officials and top
government institutions stays a sin for fear to breach the contract.
Rwanda Press Freedom died under dirty Contracts
You
can state many things in Rwanda which are hindrances to the press freedom but
It is also a woe to ignore these contracts which are being used as a sharpen
sword to choke Press freedom in Rwanda.
In
Rwanda, a well paid contract from TIGO, MTN,… is of The New times, RBA,… all pro-governmental media which always praise the
government and companies themselves and then if you are private media house you
need to accept those conditions of not reporting bad to them.