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Zimbabwe
- Annual report 2005
Reporters
Without Borders/Reporters sans frontiers
May 03, 2005
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13575
Freedom of the
press simply does not exist in Zimbabwe. Everything is under government
control, from the licensing of the media and journalists down to
the content of articles. Television and radio are a state monopoly.
Police and the judiciary ensure that dissenters live in terror or
endure the constant battering of a relentless harassment.
Over the years,
Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe has increasingly cut itself off from the
outside world. In the run-up to general elections in March 2005,
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, the president's right hand man,
redoubled his attacks on the opposition press. Although it is arguable
whether one can still talk about an opposition press when the expression
of the slightest difference of opinion is seen as a coup attempt.
The least criticism of the government reawakens the permanent suspicion
that the West is plotting against the regime. Dissenting voices
as exemplified by the Daily News, which has become mired in constant
judicial battles, find themselves harassed everywhere, even in the
street or on a bus.
Zimbabwe's top
circulation daily, along with its Sunday edition The Daily News
of Sunday, have both been targeted by the government since the end
of 2003. On 11 September of that year, after a series of clashes
between the newspaper and the authorities, the Supreme Court declared
The Daily News illegal because it had not registered with the Media
and Information Commission (MIC) as required by the Access to Information
and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). The management team refused
to comply, challenging the constitutionality of the law before the
courts. The High Court on 21 January 2004 finally allowed the newspaper
to reappear after a ban of more than four months.
The following
day an eight-page edition went back on sale in Harare's news-stands
but on 6 February, the Supreme Court confirmed that the information
law was constitutional. Resolving to fight its legal battle before
the courts to the bitter end, the Daily News decided to temporarily
suspend publication and its journalists put in applications for
accreditation to the MIC. These were immediately refused. On 20
September, the court acknowledged that the newspaper had not appeared
illegally, contrary to government claims. The newspaper's journalists
and its management team - or those with the courage and resources
to continue the fight - are now awaiting the Supreme Court ruling
on the AIPPA. In the meantime, its coffers emptied by some 40 legal
actions, the daily is broke. Its publishers, Associated Newspapers
of Zimbabwe (ANZ), stopped paying salaries in July. Out of the original
167 Daily News staff, some 20 continue to fight alongside its editor
Samuel Nkomo and his colleagues. They have had to give up the newspaper's
headquarters because they could no longer pay the rent. What was
once the country's leading newspaper is now reduced to occupying
one room in the ANZ offices.
Refinements
in the art of persecution
The
state holds a monopoly of both television and radio. Zimbabweans
who do not own a short wave radio or satellite television, both
extremely expensive in a country of ever worsening poverty, have
no chance to access media other than those under state control,
in which pro-government propaganda and fabricated journalism are
the norm. In one instance, during the last presidential elections
in 2002, journalists working for publicly-owned media spread the
rumour that anthrax attacks had been launched against officials
of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF).
Year on year,
Zimbabwe has thus become a no go area for free expression. Everything
is under government control. The all-powerful MIC, set up in 2002,
holds the small world of the press in its grip. It alone decides
who shall get the accreditation without which journalists are denied
the right to inform. Since November a two-year prison sentence awaits
any journalist who works without the approval of this government-run
censorship office. A new amendment, tabled by the government in
November, provides for sentences from 20 years to the death penalty
for a Zimbabwean or a foreigner making a false statement to a third
party with the intention of incitement to public disorder, negatively
effecting the Zimbabwe economy or undermining the authority of the
security forces.
As in all totalitarian
countries, persecution for offences of opinion can reach the height
of absurdity. In one example on 10 November, an unemployed man in
Harare was arrested and sentenced to eight months in prison or 140
hours of school cleaning for making remarks "undermining the authority
of the president". Reason Tafirei had the bad luck to be overheard
by a Zanu-PF official when he told fellow bus passengers that Mugabe
was a dictator and Tony Blair a liberator. The party official immediately
ordered the bus driver to head for the nearest police post where
the insolent citizen was immediately arrested and imprisoned. In
the same vein the authorities demanded whatever the cost that a
photographer hand over the negatives of a shots he had taken while
covering a Mugabe tour, even though he had used a digital camera.
The government's
nationalist and anti-Western obsession was again in evidence in
the autumn with a new draft law designed to further crack down on
civil society. The "Non-governmental Organisations Bill 2004" brings
local and foreign NGOs under the control of a government-appointed
regulatory body. The law, adopted by parliament on 9 December, forces
NGOs to make a yearly declaration of their accounts, their organisational
structure and their sources of funding. No political organisation,
in particular those focusing on human rights issues or governance,
is allowed to operate if one of its members is a foreigner or if
all or part of its funding comes from abroad. The rules apply equally
to democratic organisations and to those set up to fight malnutrition
or Aids. Social affairs minister Paul Mangwana boasted, "This bill
is the best law to be enacted by this parliament".
Behind a
nationalist barricade
Foreign
journalists have all left the country. Those who were not actually
expelled left of their own accord, sickened by the constant obstacles
thrown up to prevent them from working. Their media continue to
operate as best they can with the help of local journalists who
have to work in extreme secrecy. Robson Sharuko, Tendai Ndemera
and Rex Mphisa, respectively head of sport and sports journalists
on the government daily The Herald, were dismissed at the beginning
of February for contributing to US public radio Voice of America
(VOA).
Zimbabwe's obstructive
practices even caused a diplomatic incident at the end of November.
Around a dozen British journalists only obtained visas to cover
an England cricket tour after a 24-hour trial of strength between
London and Harare. The Zimbabwean authorities initially refused
to allow entry to sports journalists from the BBC, The Times, The
Sunday Times, The News of the World, The Sun and the Daily Mirror,
coming up with a range of objections from "lack of information"
to accusations of "systematic hostility".
Robert Mugabe
and his government appear to think Zimbabwe's signature is worth
little on the international scene. A member of the African Union
(AU), Harare publicly undertook in July 2004 to reform its electoral
law after ratifying the protocol on principles and rules governing
democratic elections drawn up by the South African Development Community
(SADC). Only two months later, Zimbabwe's information minister announced
his decision to ban access to public media for the main opposition
party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). This was a flagrant
violation of Article 2.1.5 of the protocol that guarantees equal
opportunity of access for all political parties to the public media.
Protests from SADC member states had very little chance of working.
In any event none were made.
In 2004…
- 7 journalists
were convicted by a court
- 16 journalists
were arrested
- 4 journalists
were physically attacked
- 4 journalists
were threatened
- 4 journalists
were unfairly dismissed
- 3 journalists
were expelled
- 1 media premises
was searched
- and 2 media
were censored
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