Most African countries are failing to adhere to their commitments to observe various rights in the creative sector by suppressing arts productions and practitioners, an arts activist has said.
Report by Tinashe Sibanda
Free Art Zimbabwe director, Josh Nyapimbi said the countries supported the right to freedom of expression in their constitutions, in some laws or in regional and international conventions to which they were signatories, yet they did not follow their provisions.
Nyapimbi noted these concerns in a statement to announce Free Art Zimbabwe’s participation at World Conference on Artistic Freedom of Expression to be held in Oslo, Norway on October 25 and 26.
Free Arts Zimbabwe is a Nhimbe Trust project that monitors and campaigns on practices and constrains on freedom of creative expression in Zimbabwe. Running under the theme All That Is Banned Is Desired, the conference will focus on contemporary censorship of the arts and limitations of artistic freedom of expression.
The sessions will include artistic performances, dialogues and discussions with censored artists, observers and cultural operators.
Nyapimbi said there were numerous rights apparently afforded to Africans through various conventions and the claims to intellectual and other freedoms. He said it was against this background that Arterial Network had in 2011 embarked on a project, Artwatch Africa, to research, monitor and expose in particular the suppression of the right to freedom of creative expression in all African countries.
Arterial Network is a civil society network of artists, cultural activists, creative enterprises and others engaged in the African creative sector.
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