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Attack on MISA, MMPZ and ZUJ absurd
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
September 29, 2006

"The future of the private media in Zimbabwe hangs in the balance. The ludicrously misnamed Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act is aimed at destroying alternative sources of Information in Zimbabwe, as well as excluding or muzzling foreign media correspondents. if these trends continue unchecked, there will be no significant private media left to report the next national elections." MMPZ (2002) Media Under Siege: Report on Media coverage of the 2002 Presidential and Mayoral elections in Zimbabwe.

"The reason for the demise of the Daily News in the promulgation of one of the most effective legal instruments of state control over the media and civil society communication any where in the world - Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA)." MISA (2004) So is This Democracy? State of the Media freedom in Southern Africa in 2003

In his usual vitriolic statements on those critical to the government's self destructive policies, the Media and Information Commission chairman Tafataona Mahoso lambasted the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe chapter, Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) and the Zimbabwe Union of Journalist (ZUJ) as conduits of western forces with a regime change agenda. Mahoso also fumed on the idea that the organizations are fighting for the repeal of unjust laws hampering media freedoms such as the lethal Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the notorious Public Order and Security Act (POSA).

The attack on these media watchdogs exposes the insanity of the people entrusted to regulate the media and equally so exhibit the long way into which progressive forces have to soldier in order to attain a new media environment dispensation fathomed from an albatross of colonial legislative framework yarned for by every Zimbabwean of good will and faith.

The Zimbabwean Constitution guarantees press freedom under section 20 (1) by stating that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, simply defined as freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference, and freedom from interference with one's correspondence. The same freedoms are guaranteed by the African Union (AU) through the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, article 9 stipulating that, "Every individual shall have the right to receive information."

On the same token, the African Commission on Human and People's Rights at its 38th Ordinary Session meeting Banjul, Gambia on the 21st of November 2005 made seven resolutions on the deteriorating human rights situation in Zimbabwe. Among these was resolution number four (4) noted below:

• Calls for the government of Zimbabwe to respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of expression, association and assembly by repealing or amending the repressive legislation such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Broadcasting Services Act and the Public Order and Security Act.

The three organizations draw their lines on sand on their positions on the afore stated nefarious laws, highlighting that the legislative pieces are a curtailment of fundamental freedoms of both the citizenry and the media in general. Mahoso should not expect any apology; if he is waiting for one then he has to wait till perpetuity. Their stance is in line with the Zimbabwean constitution and the resolution by the African Commission on People and Human's Rights (ACPHR). If merchants of colonial hangover feel that such 19th century legislation have a place in 20th century societies, then they need an extremely competent psychiatrist to moderate them.

Mahoso's bitterness with the struggle for a free and self regulated media framework is not on national interests but a bid to consolidate his newly found hegemony and political appeasement packages from the defacto government of Zanu PF. The birth of a self-regulation environment will render MIC employees jobless a fact which the MIC head has always laboured to contain.

"The three organizations make noise about AIPPA and POSA but when challenged by the government to justify their criticism, they say there was nothing wrong with the laws other than how they had been implemented," ranted Mahoso.

The Coalition thought that Mahoso was the chairman of MIC, if so in which capacity is he speaking on behalf of the government when he claims to be leading a neutral commission. This vindicates our stance that the commission is one of the most calculated assaults on the media, which to this end has aided in the muzzling rather than development of the independent media.

Its main contribution or lack of it to the Zimbabwean media terrain has been the banning of The Daily News, The Daily News on Sunday, The Tribune and The Weekly Times with the later surviving for only a month before MIC let lose its axe. Journalists were deported in defiance of court orders granting them rights to execute their duties in the country.

Commissions and other legislative ways of regulating the media have worked in collusion courses with both the domestic and international instruments of media fundamental freedoms that safeguard the rights of imparting and receiving information without government interference. Journalists just like other professionals deserve the right to regulate themselves by formulating codes of conduct and mechanisms of executing their duties.

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