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Editor threatened over presidential photo
MISA-Zimbabwe
October 01, 2004

Bornwell Chakaodza, the editor of the privately-owned Standard weekly newspaper, has been ordered by the Media and Information Commission (MIC)) to submit a negative of the photograph of President Robert Mugabe taken at the Harare Agricultural Show this year in August.

The MIC ordered Chakaodza to submit the negative by today (1 October 2004).

On 29 August 2004, the Standard published a front page photograph of President Mugabe hitching up his trousers under a headline titled: Smartening Up.

MIC chairman Dr Tafataona Mahoso, claimed the Commission had received "numerous telephone complaints" about the photograph.

Chakaodza told MISA-Zimbabwe today that he found Mahoso’s demand bizarre. "This defies words, I am lost for words. All I can say for now is that this is a complaint from Jonathan Moyo (The Minister of Information and Publicity in the President’s Office).

"In any case, we will not be able to submit a negative of the picture because our photographer used a digital camera. "I think their suspicion is that we played around with the computer to produce the photograph in question," said Chakaodza.

He said the matter had been referred to their lawyers who were going to respond to Mahoso accordingly.

The negative in question was requested for in a letter dated 16 September 2004.

In his letter to the Standard, Mahoso enclosed a written complaint from "one of the 10 or so complainants".

One of the complainants is given as J Neusu from the Department of Information writing on behalf of the Secretary of State for Information and Publicity, George Charamba.

Mahoso’s letter says the photograph sought to "caricature, belittle and undermine the dignity of the Head of State".

In a final letter of demand for information requested to assist with the investigations dated 28 September 2004,

Mahoso warns Chakaodza and the publishers of the paper, that failure to comply by 1 October 2004, would compel the MIC to proceed against them in terms of Section 50 subsection (2) and (3) and 52 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) as well as Section 12 (b) of the Commissions of Enquiry Act.

Section 50 subsection (2) stipulates that the Commission may require any record, including a record containing personal information held by a public body, to be produced as evidence.

Subsection (3) says a public body requested by the Commission to produce a record in terms of subsection (2) shall do so within a period of 10 days from the day that such record was requested.

Section 52 deals with the powers of the Commission.

During the past week alone, journalists from the Standard and its sister publication the Zimbabwe Independent, have been questioned by the police about stories published as far back as February.

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