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British journalists banned from Zimbabwe
MISA-Zimbabwe
November 24, 2004

The ban imposed against British journalists from covering England’s cricket tour amply demonstrates the extent to which Zimbabwe’s media laws can be used not only to muzzle dissenting voices but to deal with the country’s perceived foreign enemies.

In terms of Section 79 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the government-appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC), is vested with the powers of overseeing the process of accreditation.

Section 79 simply stipulates that no journalist shall work and practice in Zimbabwe without being accredited by the MIC.

The MIC has discretionary powers to turn down an application for accreditation and is not obliged to give reasons for its decision – the ‘discretion’ of which could have been used in barring the British journalists.

According to George Charamba , the secretary for Information and Publicity in the President's Office, the decision to deny 13 of 36 visa requests from British media outlets wanting to cover the tour which starts on 26 November 2004, was made on political grounds.

"Bona fide media organisations in the UK have been cleared, but those that are political have not," Charamba reportedly said in an interview with AFP.

Those banned from covering the cricket tour included journalists from the BBC, The Times, Telegraph, Sun, Mirror and their Sunday editions.

When AIPPA was enacted in 2002, the government’s intentions to muzzle the country’s nascent but highly critical private media became apparent following the selective application of the repressive media law.

The closures of the Daily News and Daily News on Sunday in September 2003 followed by that of The Tribune in June 2004, rank as AIPPA’s severest blows against media freedom and freedom of the press in Zimbabwe.

While the nation and the international community is still struggling to recover from the closure of the three privately-owned publications, AIPPA’s tentacles are not only striking at local journalists but have since spread to foreign territories.

This development gives credence to the continued calls for the repealing of AIPPA and other repressive media laws as they seriously undermine and curtail freedom of expression and media freedom as basic human rights.

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