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Journalists' Arrests
Weekly Media Update # 2002/12 - extract
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
April 25, 2002

The week witnessed the continuing harassment of journalists working for the private press by government using repressive new media legislation aimed at gagging the quality of information reaching the public.

The Daily News editor, Geoff Nyarota, Zimbabwe Independent editor, Iden Wetherell and his chief reporter, Dumisani Muleya, were arrested during the week for violating the new Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Nyarota was arrested for publishing a story alleging that the election was rigged, while Muleya, who was also charged under the similarly restrictive Rhodesian criminal defamation law, and Wetherell, were detained for a story linking Grace Mugabe to a labour dispute between a white-owned company and an employee alleged to be her brother.

All the media reported these developments, although the public media only reported condemnation of the arrests by local and international media watchdog groups in the form of condemnation by Minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo ZBC reporter Tonderai Katswara (ZTV, 15/04, 8pm) also attempted to discredit The Daily News report by alleging that figures announced by Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede did not tally with those that were subsequently published in the media, stating that the paper did not provide "factual evidence with the story". Minister Moyo was quoted in the same bulletin as having said: "The claim by The Daily News is a preposterous and deliberate falsehood consistent with many previous claims made by the daily".

After the report the ZTV newscaster read a statement issued by Moyo further discrediting The Daily News' editorial (12/04) for alleging that the government had failed to comply with the Abuja Accord. Moyo described the daily as a "British sponsored paper behind the disinformation campaign on behalf of the MDC". The state Press carried reports of the arrests the next morning, similarly dominated by Moyo's unsubstantiated comments.

SW Radio Africa (16/04) quoted the ACP-EU co-president John Corrie condemning Nyarota's arrest, which attracted a scathing response from Moyo on ZBC (ZTV,17/4, 8pm), who described his comments as "unacceptable, vulgar and perverse".

Moyo was busy again in The Herald of the following day (18/4) launching yet another emotional and vitriolic attack against an international media watchdog organisation, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF). He accused RSF "of promoting lawlessness" in Zimbabwe after it had written to him expressing its concern over the arrest of the three journalists. Moyo was quoted dismissing RSF as "nothing but a shameless partisan voice for imperial Europe deserving of the greatest contempt".

The private press performed more dispassionately, presenting their stories without being tempted into an emotionally charged slanging match with the minister. Nyarota arrested, The Daily News (16/4); International Press Watchdog condemns Nyarota's arrest; The Daily News (17/4); Independent editor arrested over Grace Mugabe story (18/4); Police charge more journalists, The Financial Gazette (18/4); and Misa condemns media blitz, The Zimbabwe Independent (19/4) are some examples.

Commendable too, was The Daily News' efforts to follow up the fate of Ugandan journalist Moses Oguti. The paper (19/4) reported him as languishing in Harare Central prison since March after he was arrested in Mutare for allegedly sneaking into the country illegally. He is now seeking a High Court petition for his release.

The paper said although a Mutare magistrate had fined Oguti $500 and ordered his deportation, the police continued to detain him in a move the journalist's lawyer described as "inhuman" and a contravention of  "international conventions relating to human rights".

The MEDIA UPDATE is produced and circulated by the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, 15 Duthie Avenue, Alexandra Park, Harare, Tel/fax: 263 4 703702, E-mail: monitors@mweb.co.zw or advocacy@media-monitors.icon.co.zw

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