HE President Hakainde Hichilema
President of the Republic of Zambia
State House
Lusaka
05 December 2025
Dear Sir
Re: Concern over the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Bill, 2025
Your Excellency, the undersigned organisations extend their greetings and compliments to you.
The organisations support the enhancement and enjoyment of media freedom, freedom of expression, access to information, and the protection of privacy rights.
Mr President, we write to you to express our concerns regarding the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Bill of 2025. While the legislation’s stated purpose is to modernise Zambia’s broadcasting sector, we are concerned that certain provisions may threaten freedom of expression, digital rights, and media pluralism in Zambia.
Upon scrutiny, the Bill contains vague definitions and grants the Broadcasting Authority overly broad powers that could be easily abused to silence critical voices, criminalise citizen journalism, and stifle innovation in the digital age. This goes against the constitutional guarantees and takes away certain rights, including the right to freedom of expression and access to information.
Your Excellency, in presenting this letter for your consideration, we acknowledge the strategic role played by the Republic of Zambia in the liberation of the region and the continent at large as a leading member of the Frontline States to ensure that the peoples of the region enjoy their inalienable rights, including the right to freedom of expression. We also recognise Zambia’s wise leadership and enduring contributions in the struggles for a prosperous and free African continent, particularly within the SADC region.
Members of the SoS Forum: Bloggers of Zambia; Centre for Innovation and Technology;eBotho Cyberspace; Ink Centre for Investigative Journalism; Media and Information Literacy Initiative; Media Council of Malawi; Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA); MISA Botswana; MISA Lesotho; MISA Malawi; MISA Mozambique; MISA Tanzania; MISA Zambia ; MISAZimbabwe ; MNN Centre for Investigative Journalism; Namibia Media Trust; PANOS Southern Africa;The Hub Lesotho; University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights; Women in News; CANGO; Magamba Network
These rights and freedoms are now part of our own African instruments and protocols, borne out of the necessity to further our collective aspirations for socio-economic stability, peaceful co-existence, unity of purpose, freedom, and prosperity.
These African instruments and protocols include, among others, guiding the spirit of writing this letter to your esteemed office, Your Excellency, as some provisions of the bill are contrary to the instruments noted below.
- African Charter on Broadcasting
- African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights
- Windhoek Declaration on Independent, Pluralistic and Diverse Media (1991) ● Windhoek Declaration +30 – Information as a public good (2021)
- Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa
- African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Model Law on Access to Information in Africa
Our primary concerns are as follows:
- The chilling effect of vague definitions
The definition of “broadcast content” should not include individual online users who share or stream content digitally. There is no clear definition of what qualifies as “Online broadcast licence”; its scope, requirements, or obligations are undefined. This lack of legal certainty leads to a significant chilling effect. It may cause ordinary citizens, bloggers, podcasters, and human rights defenders to self-censor out of fear of being deemed unlicensed broadcasters and facing severe penalties if enacted in the form it is.
- The criminalisation of digital speech
Sections 11 and 15 of the Bill make it a criminal offence to provide an unlicensed “broadcasting service,” punishable by fines of up to K200,000 and five years’ imprisonment. Given the ambiguity of what constitutes an “online broadcasting service,” these provisions could be weaponised to target and imprison individuals for their legitimate online activities. This is a grossly disproportionate response that contravenes the principle of legality and other treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Further, research on online broadcasting indicates that content produced online falls under general laws, such as the Cyber Crimes Act. The laws in such countries target social media sites and search engines, but not over-the-top broadcasting. We recommend that over-the-top content must not fall under online broadcasting, and neither should social media influencers and individual social media pages, as it will also affect the right to freedom of association
Members of the SoS Forum: Bloggers of Zambia; Centre for Innovation and Technology;eBotho Cyberspace; Ink Centre for Investigative Journalism; Media and Information Literacy Initiative; Media Council of Malawi; Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA); MISA Botswana; MISA Lesotho; MISA Malawi; MISA Mozambique; MISA Tanzania; MISA Zambia ; MISAZimbabwe ; MNN Centre for Investigative Journalism; Namibia Media Trust; PANOS Southern Africa;The Hub Lesotho; University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights; Women in News; CANGO; Magamba Network
and assembly, which are regulated in the physical space to avoid people meeting in one place and not necessarily the act of meeting itself.
- Problematic licensing regime
Under this Bill, the Authority will decide the need for a new broadcasting service, as it must first establish a need before inviting licence applications. This centralises excessive discretion in the hands of the regulator, giving it gatekeeping power and creating openings for political interference. This process could be used to systematically exclude independent, community-based, or critical voices from the broadcasting spectrum, undermining media diversity and democratic discourse.
- Board Appointment Process
The provisions governing the appointment of the Board grant the executive absolute power, undermining the IBA’s autonomy and its ability to regulate broadcast media independently. There is a need to revise such provisions to involve other stakeholders beyond the government in the selection and appointment of the IBA Board.
- Broadcast Charter
It is a positive step, but it requires stipulating what Public Service Broadcasting is and detailing the expectations of the ZNBC and the penalties it will face if it fails to play its public service broadcaster role.
Your Excellency, Zambia has experienced some commendable democratic progress over the past few years, however, the IBA Bill in its current form may have the potential to dent your country’s democratic credentials.
Therefore, it is necessary to clarify and narrow key definitions, particularly what constitutes an Online Broadcasting Service. This proposed regulation should focus on structured, professional media entities rather than ordinary citizens.
We therefore humbly submit that the Zambian authorities should reconsider this position and remove criminal penalties for licensing offences and replace them with proportionate administrative fines for legitimate, licensed broadcasters who breach technical regulations.
Moreover, replacing the restrictive “invitation to apply” model with a rights-based approach is essential to maintain competitiveness and boost diversity within the industry. This is important to ensure that the licensing process remains transparent, non-discriminatory, and fosters diversity in the media landscape.
Your Excellency, we further submit that the Government of Zambia address the clauses that require prior approval of the Authority’s editorial policies. Media organisations should Members of the SoS Forum: Bloggers of Zambia; Centre for Innovation and Technology;eBotho Cyberspace; Ink Centre for Investigative Journalism; Media and Information
Literacy Initiative; Media Council of Malawi; Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA); MISA Botswana; MISA Lesotho; MISA Malawi; MISA Mozambique; MISA Tanzania; MISA Zambia ; MISAZimbabwe ; MNN Centre for Investigative Journalism; Namibia Media Trust; PANOS Southern Africa;The Hub Lesotho; University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights; Women in News; CANGO; Magamba Network
independently develop their editorial guidelines in accordance with constitutional guarantees and self-regulatory codes of ethics.
We, therefore, urge the Government of the Republic of Zambia to conduct multiple stakeholder consultations and give due weight to the submissions of stakeholders to revise this Bill fundamentally.
While regulatory measures are indispensable for the efficient functioning of broadcasting services, which regulate the finite resource, there is a need to strike a healthy balance to ensure that broadcasting services operate as a public good, promoting freedom of expression, as aptly provided in the Windhoek Declaration +30 – Information as a public good.
Your Excellency, we humbly request your esteemed office to intervene in this matter and ensure further consultation on the IBA Bill, so that it fosters rather than obstructs access to information and freedom of expression.
For and on behalf of the Spaces of Solidarity Forum (SoS)
Your Sincerely
Jeremias Langa
MISA Regional Chairperson
The SoS Forum is a collective of 23 organisations in Southern Africa that work on freedom of expression, access to information, media freedom and digital rights. For further inquiries or information, contact the SoS technical team at: regional@misa.org or tabani@misa.org
CC: ACHPR Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to
Information Commissioner Ourveena Geereesha Topsy-Sonoo
U N Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom o f Opinion and Expression Irene Khan
Head of the African Union Governance Architecture Salah S. Hammad
Members of the SoS Forum: Bloggers of Zambia; Centre for Innovation and Technology;eBotho Cyberspace; Ink Centre for Investigative Journalism; Media and Information Literacy Initiative; Media Council of Malawi; Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA); MISA Botswana; MISA Lesotho; MISA Malawi; MISA Mozambique; MISA Tanzania; MISA Zambia ; MISAZimbabwe ; MNN Centre for Investigative Journalism; Namibia Media Trust; PANOS Southern Africa;The Hub Lesotho; University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights; Women in News; CANGO; Magamba Network
