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Mugabe kicks out defiant journalist
The Daily Telegraph (UK)
May 17, 2003

Harare - Andrew Meldrum was determined not to go quietly yesterday. As he was dragged and shoved by Zimbabwe police into their vehicle, he was still shouting about press freedom. Ten hours later, despite numerous legal challenges to his deportation, he was bundled on to an Air Zimbabwe flight and banished from the country. He was due to land in London this morning. In a day of drama, Mr Meldrum, 51, veteran Zimbabwe correspondent for the Guardian was declared a prohibited immigrant in an order made on the third floor of a building in Nelson Mandela Street which houses the immigration department. Minutes later Mr Meldrum, an American citizen but long-standing permanent resident of Zimbabwe was arrested and taken at high speed in a police vehicle to Harare International Airport, where he disappeared for several hours. Frantic last-minute efforts ensued to allow him to stay. Mr Meldrum's solicitor, the diminutive Beatrice Mtetwa, ran from the immigration department to the nearby high court and applied for an urgent hearing to appeal against his deportation. Judge Charles Hungwe granted it immediately and set the hearing for yesterday afternoon. She then rushed back to the immigration department and served the papers on officials there. Then she drove to the airport and served the papers on Air Zimbabwe which had three aircraft leaving the country yesterday afternoon. But the efforts were in vain. Late in the evening, Mr Meldrum snatched a few brief words with his wife before being inserted on to a flight to Gatwick. American diplomats at the airport were not given access to him nor were they told where he was.

The latest saga began nine days ago when four men, saying they were immigration officials, arrived at his home at night in a convoy of vehicles, one a van with blacked-out windows. He was not at home and when Ms Mtetwa arrived and stood guard at his gate the officials left. She advised Mr Meldrum not to return home. She was then ordered to produce Mr Meldrum at the immigration offices yesterday. They spent half an hour behind locked doors, and when they emerged, accompanied by plain-clothed and uniformed members of the Zimbabwe police and members of the Central Intelligence Organisation, Mr Meldrum was composed but grim faced. "I am out. I have to go immediately." When he arrived downstairs a clutch of local and foreign journalists were waiting. He shouted to the media, many of whom were personal friends: "This is not the action of a legitimate government. It is afraid of a free press. It is afraid of independent and critical reporting." Infuriated police grabbed him around the neck, pulled at his jacket and eventually overpowered him and pushed him into a back passenger seat of their saloon. Diplomats who had parked across the street followed the police car, which was not marked with official number plates, to the airport. That was the last anyone saw of him until he flew out.

At the appointed time Judge Hungwe arrived at the high court, but Mr Meldrum was missing. The judge ruled that the police must produce him. "There is no reason to have him detained. He must be able to enjoy his freedom." The court was told that the deportation order, signed by Kembo Mohadi, the home affairs minister, said it was "not in the public interest to disclose the reasons why I deemed Andrew Meldrum an undesirable inhabitant or visitor to Zimbabwe". Ms Mtetwa told Judge Hungwe that the immigration official responsible for deporting Mr Meldrum was in contempt of court for failing to produce him for the hearing and should be imprisoned until her client appeared. She later obtained a second court order to prevent Mr Meldrum's deportation, but was unable to find immigration officials at the airport on which to serve the document. A legal expert said the contempt of court involved in overriding the high court orders was a "very serious" breach of law. But he added: "They were determined to get rid of him and they have. Regretfully the Zimbabwe police regularly ignore orders. They even laugh at them. That has been the trend for some time now."

In the past year Mr Meldrum has been accused in the state-controlled media of being a terrorist and a spy, and of damaging Zimbabwe's image. He has reported daily on Zimbabwe from shortly after independence from Britain in 1980, those days of hope, reconstruction and reconciliation which followed the country's first democratic elections after the Rhodesian civil war. But Zimbabwe gradually descended into repression, a country where human rights abuses are the order of the day for those who oppose the government. There is no single report among so many penned by Mr Meldrum in the past year that would have enraged the government more than usual. But he was the first journalist to be acquitted under legislation passed after the disputed presidential election last year, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. He reported a story, which appeared in the Daily News, which claimed a woman had been beheaded by ruling party supporters in front of her children. The story was false, and the Guardian and Daily News published apologies. Mr Meldrum was arrested, charged, and last August was acquitted of publishing a falsehood, but was served with a deportation order outside the magistrate's court minutes later. Ms Mtetwa immediately went to the high court protesting that permanent residents have the same rights as citizens under the constitution and a decision on Mr Meldrum's status was referred to the supreme court, where it remains. Mr Meldrum is the latest in a long line of journalists targeted by President Robert Mugabe. The work permit of The Daily Telegraph's David Blair was withdrawn two years ago, that of the BBC's Joseph Winter at about the same time, and others back to the 1980s. More than 60 media workers have been arrested in the past year, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa. Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, said: "The authorities have been persecuting Andrew for 12 months and their clear determination to deport him can only be interpreted as a concerted effort to stifle any free press." Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, described Zimbabwe's action as "petty and vindictive".

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