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Media Freedom Under Siege
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-17
Monday April 26^th - Sunday May 2^nd 2004

As the democratic world commemorated World Press Freedom Day on Monday, May 3^rd, the Zimbabwean authorities were threatening to close down one of the few remaining independent sources of information in the country.

The government appointed Media and Information Commission demonstrated the extensive control the authorities now have over the public dissemination of information by accusing the new owners of the privately owned weekly Tribune newspaper of publishing illegally in violation of the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (The Herald, 3/5).

But this is only the latest government assault on the democratic ethos of media freedom that the United Nations-sponsored event is intended to promote and safeguard. Only a small group of media workers and human rights defenders gathered to take stock of the damage inflicted on Zimbabweans’ right to free expression by a determined and systematic campaign by government to silence all sources of information critical of its policies and actions.

More than 100 journalists have been arrested under AIPPA and the equally repressive Public Order and Security Act (POSA), many others have been harassed and assaulted by security forces and scores of journalists have been deprived of their jobs following the government’s violent shut-down of the country’s most popular daily paper, The Daily News, and its Sunday sister publication.

In addition, the government has hijacked the national public broadcasting corporation and the traditional daily and weekly regional newspaper stable of publications, Zimpapers, formerly held by a public trust, to disseminate its propaganda and wage an unrelenting war on its critics. Independent broadcasting also remains a figment of repressive legislation.

Instead of operating according to basic international standards of journalistic practice, the government-controlled media continue to be used to disseminate abusive messages vilifying and persecuting individuals, minorities and political opposition and promoting racism and intolerance, often bordering on incitement to hatred.

MMPZ laments this cynical abuse of the media and the legislative process to create and entrench such a hostile, intolerant and authoritarian political environment.

Notably, the latest victim of the government media’s campaign to discredit individuals has been the ZANU PF Member of Parliament, Kindness Paradza, the new publisher of the Tribune, whose maiden speech in Parliament recently critically analyzed the country’s repressive media laws.

Instead of capturing and condemning this sad scenario in the country’s media sector on World Press Freedom Day, ZTV (3/5, 8pm) first made the absurd announcement that "media experts and analysts" believed "Zimbabwe has made commendable strides in creating a conducive environment for freedom of the Press since… 1980", before stating that Press freedom "should not be misconstrued as an opportunity to demonise the country and destroy the social and political fibre which unites the people".

MIC chairman Tafataona Mahoso was then quoted endorsing the country’s repressive media laws saying they were promulgated following "hundreds of workshops" debating the issue. "These laws were tested…in terms of parliamentary procedures…signed by the Executive… They were challenged in the courts…and…have withstood the democratic test", said Mahoso, who was found to be biased against The Daily News by a High Court judge last year, and whose commission was judged to be "improperly constituted". Mahoso’s comments were allowed to pass without challenge.

ZTV’s Media Watch (3/5, 9pm) went on to echo the authorities’ absurd assertion that Press freedom was a Western concept, whose principles could not be applied universally.

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