|
Back to Index
Persecution
of dissenting voices
Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-43
Monday October 25th - Sunday October 31st 2004
ONLY the private
media continued to question government’s commitment to democracy
after ZANU PF used its majority in Parliament to jail MDC MP Roy
Bennet for assaulting Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa during
a parliamentary debate in May.
This followed
recommendations made to the House by a five-member Parliamentary
Privileges Committee led by ZANU PF MP and Social Welfare Minister,
Paul Mangwana, set up to investigate the matter.
The committee,
comprising three ZANU PF MPs and their two MDC counterparts, voted
on party lines resulting in Bennet being sentenced to 12 months’
jail.
The government
media celebrated the decision arguing that this was a deterrent
sentence. In the process, they ignored the fact – only carried by
the private media – that the incarceration was the culmination of
government’s documented systematic campaign to persecute opposition
MPs, particularly Bennet.
ZTV (27/10,
8pm), for instance, merely quoted Mangwana, defending the heavy
sentence.
The Herald
and Chronicle (28/10) also failed to note that the attack
on Bennet by the MP for Makoni North, Didymus Mutasa, had escaped
the attention of Mangwana’s committee. This allowed the government
papers to continue accusing Bennet of attacking Mutasa in their
subsequent reports on the matter.
The private
media’s coverage was more comprehensive. They quoted a variety of
comments from human rights lawyers, the International Bar Association,
the MDC and Bennet himself.
SW Radio Africa
(27/10) cited MDC’s Shadow Minister for Justice, David Coltart,
pointing out that the judgment was "unprecedented"
and a "gross abuse of power", because
it ignored the element of "extreme provocation"
against Bennet by Chinamasa.
Lawyers Arnold
Tsunga and Jacob Mafume (SW Radio Africa 28/10), Lovemore Madhuku
(Studio 7 28/10), Gugulethu Moyo, Beatrice Mtetwa and MDC MPs (SW
Radio Africa 29/10), all agreed.
Tsunga dismissed
the voting process as "an arbitrary process done purely
along political party lines and not [based] on principles",
while the IBA believed the "long prison term"
slapped on Bennet was "designed" to "eliminate
him from standing as MP in next year’s
poll"
(SW Radio Africa, 29/10).
Bennet himself
told the station how government had systematically persecuted him
in the past five years "through intimidation, violence
and destruction of my property", culminating in his
farm being taken over by government despite court orders preventing
this.
In fact, The
Daily Mirror (28/10) and SWRA (29/10) queried why Chinamasa
and Mutasa had not also been reprimanded for their role in the scuffle,
a development that Mafume reportedly told Studio 7 (28/10) meant
that, "Parliament is selectively applying its laws".
The government
media ignored these observations. Rather, ZTV (28/10, 6pm), Power
FM Power FM (28/10, 8pm) and Radio Zimbabwe (29/10, 6am), The
Herald and Chronicle (29/10) misrepresented the circumstances
leading to Bennet’s arrest at Harare International Airport just
before he was jailed. They claimed he was trying to flee to South
Africa.
But Bennet and
his wife disputed this in stories carried by SW Radio Africa (28/10)
and the Independent. Bennet’s wife told SW Radio Africa that
her husband planned to consult lawyers in SA over a case in which
he is suing the government agricultural agency, ARDA, for allegedly
"selling his coffee worth over US$200 000 to Germany"
after confiscating his farm.
Visit the MMPZ
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
|
