{"id":241366,"date":"2026-08-18T08:09:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T06:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/zambia\/southern-africa-misa-regional-preliminary-statement-on-media-freedom-digital-rights-and-access-to-information-in-the-2026-zambia-general-elections\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T08:09:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T06:09:51","slug":"southern-africa-misa-regional-preliminary-statement-on-media-freedom-digital-rights-and-access-to-information-in-the-2026-zambia-general-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/zambia\/southern-africa-misa-regional-preliminary-statement-on-media-freedom-digital-rights-and-access-to-information-in-the-2026-zambia-general-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Africa: Misa Regional Preliminary Statement On Media Freedom, Digital Rights and Access to Information in the 2026 Zambia General Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"36\">MISA Regional acknowledges the enactment of the Access to Information (ATI) law and the repeal of criminal defamation of the president as historical milestones. However, these are paper victories that have been neutralised by institutional silence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"3\">15 August 2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"2\">Lusaka, Zambia<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"2\"><strong>Executive overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n  <span style=\"font-size: 110%;\"><br \/>\nKeep up with the latest headlines on <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VaIdDi8Bqbr263erhw1K\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WhatsApp<\/a> | <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/allafrica\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a><br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"42\">The general elections of 13 August 2026 served as a defining crucible for Zambia&#8217;s democratic integrity and the endurance of its civic&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202608180144.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Zambia\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/zambia\/\">Zambia<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MISA Regional acknowledges the enactment of the Access to Information (ATI) law and the repeal of criminal defamation of the president as historical milestones. However, these are paper victories that have been neutralised by institutional silence. 15 August 2026 Lusaka, Zambia Executive overview Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn The general [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":241367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[825],"tags":[6450,258,256,9633,821,7636,6768,422,4959,2915,257,15348,4268,5100,254,7153,6065,4709,881],"class_list":["post-241366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zambia","tag-access","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-digital","tag-elections","tag-freedom","tag-general","tag-information","tag-media","tag-misa","tag-news","tag-preliminary","tag-regional","tag-rights","tag-south-africa-today","tag-southern","tag-statement","tag-zambia","tag-zambia-news"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}