Back to Index

Information Rights Violations Report December 2003 – February 2004
Public Information Rights forum (PIRF)
April 15, 2004

Download this legislation
- Word 97  version (185KB)
- Acrobat PDF version (130KB)
If you do not have the free Acrobat reader on your computer, download it from the Adobe website by clicking here.

Introduction
The Public Information Rights Forum is a network of civic media editors and information officers in the Civic Alliance for Social and Economic Progress (CASEP). CASEP is a network of membership based organizations working to advance the social and economic interests of disadvantaged communities in the education, labour, health, local governance, media and health sectors. Its membership includes the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA), Public Services Association (PSA), the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ), Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU), Zimbabwe United Residents Association (ZURA), Zimbabwe Human Rights Organization (ZimRights) and the Zimbabwe Projects Trust (ZPT).

PIRF acts as a community representative of consumers of media products. In the past two years, the organization has concentrated on carrying out civic education work on public information rights issues and developments. Civics in various provinces have developed methods of monitoring information rights developments in their respective communities and developed methods of bringing these to the attention of local and international human rights organisations. Meetings with civic leaders including Members of Parliament and councilors have also been held.

MMPZ acts as the Secretariat to PIRF and researches topical developments in the information and media sector, including monitoring the content of the country’s mainstream media through analysis of news and current affairs. MMPZ produces weekly reports on the latter and occasionally detailed reports on topical issues.

This report was compiled by Sizani Weza, Researcher at MMPZ, and details information rights developments between 1^st December 2003 and 28 February 2004. Its main focus is on those developments that are likely to impinge on the public’s rights to information and freedom of expression. Most of the issues are drawn from the reports of human rights organisations and the media.

The author and the PIRF are grateful to the Norwegian Agency for International Development (NORAD) and the Netherlands Institute of Southern Africa (NiZA) who supported the research and publication of this report.

Ethical Principles
In monitoring information rights developments, PIRF adheres to the following principles:

• Freedom of expression is a fundamental right enshrined in the country's Constitution. This right includes the right of the public to receive and impart information unhindered.
• While tolerance of the views of individuals in different social, economic and political groups is exercised, great exception is taken to views likely to incite violence and hatred against certain groups. Such views are described as hate speech or hate language
• The media and its workers should be allowed to exercise their legal right to collect and disseminate information without Government interference. Accreditation of journalists should be restricted to a non- discriminatory administrative process and should not be used to limit or control any individual's constitutional right to receive and disseminate information freely. Similarly, the registration of media should also be restricted to an administrative process that only limits the broadcast media in a way that allows for the fair and non-discriminatory administration of the national wave band space.
• Freedom of association means that one is free to be a member of any legally constituted body. It also means freedom to withdraw from the same organization or association.
• Information is power. Fair and accurate information empowers, whereas propaganda and false information leads to uninformed decisions. In addition, PIRF believes it is the Government's duty to protect and promote the right to basic education through the provision of adequate educational facilities for all.

The Zimbabwe Government is notorious for its poor record in upholding the public's right to information and expression. The following developments in the past four years confirm this:

• Government has closed down all private radio stations and prevented new ones from entering the broadcasting arena
• It has outlawed independent television
• It has been at the forefront of preventing the Daily News, the country's highest circulation daily newspaper from publishing.
• It has enacted extensively repressive media laws that make it impossible for privately owned media to collect and disseminate public information without government interference
• Scores of journalists have been arrested under these laws.
• Government officials have made statements that border on hate speech against anyone who criticizes Zanu PF policies, actions and its leader.
• It has ignored several court orders allowing The Daily News to resume publishing, among others. In fact, the President himself publicly stated that his Government would defy judgments that are "not objective" (The Herald, 27th July 2002).

To read more, download the document.

Visit the PIRF fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP