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Daily News shut down, journalists and director arrested
Media Institute of Southern Africa - (Windhoek)
October 25, 2003

On October 25 2003, police occupied the offices of Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper, halting operations and detaining staff one day after a court order blocked government efforts to shut it down.

Officials at the Daily News said armed police swooped on the newspaper offices in central Harare and detained 18 journalists and administrators just hours after the paper put out its first edition since being closed more than a month ago. The employees were released after about four hours, but were required to sign statements saying they worked for the newspaper's publisher. They also received a verbal warning not to return to work, newspaper staff said.

The following day, on October 26 2003, police arrested Washington Sansole, a director of the Daily News on charges of operating without a license.

The raid on the Daily News occurred one day after the Harare Administrative Court ordered that the newspaper be granted a new publishing license. The license had not yet been issued, but newspaper executives said they believed the court order was sufficient grounds to resume publication immediately.

The Daily News, closed after a court found it did not have the license required by Zimbabwe's strict new media laws, quickly went to work and rushed out an eight-page edition on Saturday headlined "We Are Back."

Senior Assistant Police Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena told state TV that police were enforcing the will of the court. "The police have taken action against the ANZ because the Daily News cannot publish without a license and must comply the court's ruling." Zimbabwe state radio quoted unnamed lawyers suggesting the Daily News' publication on Saturday was against the law and in contempt of court.

BACKGROUND
Friday's court ruling held that the state media commission erred when it rejected a license application by the Daily News. The court ordered that a new commission be appointed and a license granted to the Daily News by November 30. Media commission officials, who argued that the paper's application came too late, said they would appeal against the ruling. The newspaper had initially refused to apply for a license in protest at the new media laws.

An editorial in the Daily News' Saturday edition said the law, officially known as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), was bound to fail. "If the government insists that this notorious law, whose passage through parliament was as stormy as some of its provisions were of dubious legality, must continue to be on our statute books, then we can foresee it having to endure humiliation after humiliation as AIPPA is successfully challenged in the courts," the editorial said.

* Reuters, ZWNews, BBC and IRIN contributed to this report.

*This is an update of MISA Alerts of September 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, October 1, 3, 9, 17 and 24, 2003.
See www.misa.org and http://www.misa.org/advocacy/appeal.html for more information.

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