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: HIV has been isolated and can be detected; viral video claims otherwise
Nicole Tau In September 2026, a video (archived here) circulating on social media falsely claimed that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has never been proven to exist. The footage is a classic case of HIV/AIDS denialism, heavily recycling arguments from the...
FALSE: Image of person of interest in Dobsonville rape case wrongly linked to Ekurhuleni women’s deaths
Nicole Tau On September 15, an image circulated on Facebook as that of a man allegedly wanted in connection with the deaths of eight women in and around Kempton Park. However, the post falsely links the image to the Ekurhuleni investigation. The image was shared...
PRESS STATEMENT: MISA LESOTHO CONDEMNS VANDALISM OF KEL RADIO STATION
PRESS STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 15 September 2026 | Maseru, Lesotho The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Lesotho strongly condemns the reported vandalism and destruction of equipment and furniture at KEL Radio Station over the weekend. MISA Lesotho is...
“See the Person First”: Overhauling Disability Reporting in Lesotho
Nicole Tau When a citizen cannot enter a government building to access basic services, the limitation is not in their physical form. The limitation is in the architecture. When a voter cannot cast a ballot because a polling station lacks a ramp, the deficit belongs to...
ALTERED: Digitally manipulated video falsely shows South African woman physically assaulting a foreign shop owner
Nicole Tau A video (archived here) shared on Facebook claims to show a South African woman physically assaulting the owner of a foreign-run spaza shop, an informal township grocery store, during an argument over business licenses and regulatory compliance. In the...