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Continued harassment of journalists
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2005-13
Tuesday April 12th - Sunday April 17th 2005

THE acquittal of two Sunday Telegraph journalists, Toby Harnden and Julian Simmonds, on charges of illegally working as journalists proved to be another stark example of how the authorities continue to use repressive media laws to deprive individuals of their freedom on spurious allegations.

The two were arrested on election day on allegations that they had violated the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) by practising journalism without accreditation and spent almost 14 days in jail. According to The Herald (15/4), magistrate Never Diza discharged the journalists saying the State had failed to "establish a case against the two". The Zimbabwe Independent (15/4) also reported on the issue.

But the British journalists' case serves as a grim reminder of the risks that local journalists, particularly those working for the private media, face daily during the course of their work. Dozens of them have been arrested and harassed under the same draconian media laws or the equally repressive security law, POSA, but none have yet been convicted. As this report was being compiled, The Mail and Guardian (20/4) reported that The Standard's editor, Davison Maruziva, had been "summoned to Harare's main police station to answer questions" about a story his paper published on April 10 that Zaka District Administrator Nyashadzashe Zindove had been arrested after he was allegedly found with ballot papers and boxes at his home.

Apart from being used as an instrument to harass journalists, AIPPA also gives the government appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC) overwhelming powers to decide who should publish and who should not. This has resulted in media houses seemingly operating at the benevolence of the commission rather than on the principle of their constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression.

The Financial Gazette exposed this aspect when it reported MIC chairman Tafataona Mahoso arrogantly defending his commission's delay in processing a re-application by the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe to have its two publications, The Daily News and The Daily News on Sunday registered. Mahoso was quoted questioning why the ANZ's application should be treated urgently when there were so "many [applications] from churches, NGOs", which were all awaiting his commission's considerations. But while MIC takes its time to consider ANZ's application, the majority of Zimbabweans, who have been subjected to incessant propaganda from the government controlled media, remain starved of an alternative and mass circulating daily source of information. It is the gravely undemocratic nature of AIPPA that exposes the fallacy of the authorities' claims that Zimbabwe is a "mature democracy".

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