Burundi Media Regulator-CNC warns media houses that will not conform to its rules and regulations will not work in Burundi from 2018. Journalists should be registered and media should sign a specification note.
Karenga Ramadhani and Aimée Divine Niyokwizigirwa: Journalists without a professional card won’t be allowed to work in Burundi from 2018
Burundi Media Regulator-CNC says it will not be easy for media houses that will not have registered their journalists before the end of this year. “Journalists who will not be registered in media national record book which is open in CNC will have no right to work in Burundi from 2018”, says Aimée Divine Niyokwizigirwa, deputy chairperson and spokesperson for CNC.
Niyokwizigirwa also says all the specification notes of all media operating in Burundi have to be signed and updated: “All the media which will not have signed and updated specifications notes will have no rights to work in Burundi”, she says
“From 2018, every journalist ought to be registered and have a professional card issued by CNC, if not he won’t be authorized to work in the country” says Karenga Ramadhani, CNC Chairman
For Innocent Muhozi, Chairman of Burundi Press Observatory- OPB, the measures are repressive and come to worsen the existing chaotic situation in which Burundian journalists are working. “This is far from being logical. Journalists have their press card delivered by the media they work for. Is there any need to have another extra card while those media are registered in CNC?”, he wonders
Muhozi also says those measures are useless. He says CNC should not play the role of the police of journalists as it is doing, rather, it should promote journalism in Burundi so as to help the population to have access to information.
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