Media freedom monitoring

Monitoring media freedom has been one of MISA Lesotho core activities since the organisation’s establishment in 1995.
To do this, we compile and publish accurate and detailed media violations and victories: that is, we record media freedom abuses as well as progress towards a free, independent, diverse and pluralistic media as envisaged by the Windhoek Declaration.
Media violations are issued in the form of alerts to educate people about the nature of the abuse and highlight trends. Alerts can also serve as advocacy tools and inform research to help influence changes to legislation and policy, as well as help bring perpetrators to justice.
Media violations include:
- when journalists are physically or verbally assaulted, threatened, injured, kidnapped, disappear, arrested, killed, censored, denied credentials or wrongfully expelled during the course of their work or as a direct result of their work
- when news outlets are attacked, illegally searched, censored, closed by force, raided, unable to report, broadcast or publish because of factors such as the confiscation of equipment, blocking of their online site or the jamming of transmissions
- when new legislation or changes to legislation hinder journalists from conducting their work freely and without fear.
We use this information to compile the MISA regional report, So this is Democracy? which ranks and measures the performance of Lesotho against other countries in the Southern African region.
Media freedom monitoring news from our chapters
FALSE: Magnitude 6 earthquakes are not increasing and are not linked to climate change
A claim that a rise in earthquakes of a magnitude of six or more points to impending catastrophic climate changes is FALSE. A post on Facebook claims that seismic activity is increasing, exponentially so in the case of magnitude six earthquakes. It adds that the same...
Partly false: Image of assaulted gay person isn’t from Lesotho
The incident took place in Durban, South Africa. By Maleshoane Ratsebe A Facebook post with an image claiming to show a person assaulted over a forced sexual interaction is misleading. The post claims that a carpenter in Mafeteng, Lesotho, physically assaulted a gay...
Fact Check: Viral Video of ‘Lesotho Citizens Fleeing to South Africa’ Is Actually LDF Recruitment Footage
Nicole Tau A Facebook page with 1 million followers, South Africa Daily, on 6 June 2025 shared a video claiming it showed ‘Lesotho citizens trying to cross borders to South Africa.’ The footage depicts hundreds of people pressed against each other, suggesting mass...
Fact Check: Parliament Isn’t Criminalizing Monogamy in 2026
Nicole Tau A Facebook post alleges that Lesotho’s Parliament is working on passing a law in 2026 making it a crime for a man to have only one wife. On 31 March 2025, a Facebook user (14K followers) shared in a Facebook group (327.1K members) that Parliament is...
Fact-check: Does the Aphelion cold spell trigger flu and breathing problems?
By Nicole Tau A viral post claims that Earth's aphelion, the point farthest from the sun, hits on 2 May 2025, plunging us into the coldest spell on record from July through August, and that this chill will trigger an onslaught of flu, coughs, and breathing problems...