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This was published 4 years ago
'You could not make this up': journalist barred from Australian free speech conference
An award-winning Cameroonian investigative journalist invited to give a speech about media freedom at a conference in Brisbane on Friday has been denied a visa by Australian authorities.
Mimi Mefo, winner of this year’s Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award, was due to give the keynote address at the Integrity 20 conference hosted by Griffith University, but was told in correspondence that Australian authorities, “were not satisfied that the applicant’s employment and financial situation provide an incentive to return”.
Mimi Mefo has been denied a visa to enter Australia.Credit: The Washington Post
Ms Mefo told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that she was concerned officials denied her visa based on "stereotype views of Africans" rather than on her circumstances. "Maybe it would have been different if they just Googled me or looked at my Twitter or Facebook page. Not everyone who comes to Australia [from Africa] wants to stay."
An appeal on the visa decision failed.
Ms Mefo said countries like Australia had a responsibility to not just voice support for journalism, but to support journalists.
"It is totally unacceptable to treat journalists like this. Any country that claims to adhere to democracy has to go beyond the promise and the words, you need action," she said.
Ms Mefo works for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Last year she was arrested and briefly imprisoned in Cameroon for reporting the army had caused the death of an American pastor. The country has been struck by civil unrest since 2016. Ms Mefo was subjected to a campaign of harassment for her reporting on the crisis.
Ms Mefo was due in South Africa following her address in Brisbane to give the Carlos Cardoso memorial lecture at the African Investigative Journalism Conference.
Earlier this year Ms Mefo travelled to London as a guest of the British government to address the Global Conference for Media Freedom.
"I was going to speak to young journalists in Australia about what it is to be a journalist in a place like Cameroon, in conflict. I think that they have missed out on that, I am not the only person to have missed out," she said.
Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Index on Censorship, a London-based free speech advocacy group, said it was “frankly insulting and belittling to suggest Mimi Mefo would use the opportunity of this keynote to seek asylum in Australia.”
Ms Ginsberg was due to appear on a panel discussion about growing restrictions on freedom of expression around the world with Ms Mefo during the conference.
“Now we will spend a lot of our time talking about the situation in Australia,” she said. “In a week when Australian media has launched a campaign about the government’s poor attitude towards the right to know, you could not make this up.”
She said by preventing speakers like Ms Mefo from entering the country the government not only did a disservice to those who might have heard her speak, but damaged Australia’s reputation and strengthened the hand of authoritarian governments.
“There is a reason repressive regimes use travel bans,” she said. “They work.”
A staff member for Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton referred questions about Ms Mefo’s visa to the Department of Home Affairs, which said in a statement it did not comment on individual cases.