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Another blow to press freedom
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-28
Monday July 5^th – Sunday July 11^th 2004

AS this report went to print, Press freedom suffered yet another severe blow with news that the High Court had upheld the decision by the government appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC) to shut down the privately owned weekly newspaper, The Tribune. MIC closed the paper in June on grounds that its publishers, Africa Tribune Newspapers, had not informed the commission about material changes made to the paper as required under the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). In his ruling, Justice Tendayi Uchena noted that the MIC acted "within its discretion", adding that the commission’s decision to deregister The Tribune "could not be faulted" (The Herald 22/7).

The ruling makes it abundantly clear that the provisions of AIPPA are undemocratic and grossly repressive. Instead of necessitating public access to information, this draconian piece of legislation has been used to systematically erode basic information rights of the citizenry.

MMPZ therefore calls for an urgent repeal of the law and indeed other equally repressive pieces of legislation such as POSA for there can never be a free and fair election next year without the free flow of information. This is particularly so in light of revelations by the Zimbabwe Independent’s (16/7) that the authorities were trying to build a case against the South African based weekly Mail & Guardian (M&G) in a bid to silence it. The M&G is increasingly becoming one of the main sources of information among the few remaining alternative media, which are accessible to Zimbabweans. According to the Independent, the authorities obtained a subpoena compelling officials at Century Bank to supply the police with information about the M&G account from January 1 this year and records of all cheque transactions done since the beginning of the year.

This happened barely a week after police visited to the newspapers’ distributors following The Sunday Mail’s (20/6) unsubstantiated allegations that the publishers intended to print the paper in Zimbabwe. Such blatant attempts to gag the M&G fully expose the government’s paranoia of free Press and hatred of alternative viewpoints.

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