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Media Monitoring Project deplores the assault and harassment of journalists
Excerpt from Weekly update 2003-22
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
June 02 - June 08, 2003

The Media Monitoring Project deplores the assault and harassment of journalists from the private media by ZANU-PF youths and state security agents during the MDC’s week-long mass action. Such attacks terrorize those going about their lawful business and stifle the free flow of information and therefore undermine the foundations of democratic society.

Following the failure of the police to bring to justice those ZANU-PF youths who destroyed numerous copies of The Daily News during the stay-away, the law enforcement authorities also turned a blind eye to the assault of two journalists from the private radio station, Voice of the People by ruling party youths on June 2. The journalists had gone to cover events unfolding at the University of Zimbabwe and later mistakenly interviewed the youths at Avondale shopping centre believing they were students who had escaped the police crackdown on a campus demonstration.

The journalists were assaulted and had their cell phones and recording equipment "confiscated" and were then dropped off at the ruling party’s headquarters in Harare where they were again allegedly assaulted and forced to reveal how they packaged their programmes for broadcasting from outside the country. They were eventually taken to Harare Central Police Station where they were released without charge. But the police have done nothing to bring to justice those responsible for the assaults. This represents a clear breach of the constitutional right of individuals to the full protection of the law and reinforces the generally held impression that this protection is only selectively applied.

MMPZ also condemns the illegal raid on the family home of the journalist and film-maker, Edwina Spicer, on the night of June 6^th by individuals believed to be state security agents. The Spicer family is away on holiday, but the raiders assaulted staff at the premises and removed millions of dollars worth of equipment from the home. Such illegal, violent and clandestine activity clearly terrorizes Zimbabwe’s media community and echoes the violent and illegal manner in which government authorities abducted and deported the journalist Andrew Meldrum recently.

In another incident, ZTV (6/6 & 8/6, 8pm bulletins) dismissed video footage broadcast by SkyNews allegedly featuring the attempts of an individual described as a war veteran trying to confiscate a video camera from a freelance journalist filming the last day of the protests in Harare. The war veteran, hanging onto the back of the moving truck in which the journalist was filming, threatened to burn the vehicle if he was not given the camera. ZTV claimed the footage was "concocted… in order to portray imaginary stories on the situation in Zimbabwe". But the report provided no proof of this, although it attempted to speculate how the video had been stage-managed.
Meanwhile, the media have failed to inform the public adequately on the changes to the amendments to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act that government has tabled before Parliament. Nor have they provided detail of the manner in which they were introduced and how the second amendments escaped further scrutiny by the parliamentary legal committee.

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