|
Back to Index
So
This Is Democracy? - State of media freedom and freedom of expression
in southern Africa 2005
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
April, 2006
Download
this document
- Acrobat
PDF version (1.15MB)
If you do not have the free Acrobat reader
on your computer, download it from the Adobe website by clicking
here.
Zimbabwe
As 2005 drew to a close, the government of Zimbabwe demonstrated
increasing paranoia, intolerance and disdain for opposing views
by seizing the passport of publisher Trevor Ncube, arresting Voice
of the People Communications Trust (VOP) staff and confiscating
equipment from the same organisation.
Immigration
officials in Bulawayo seized Ncube's passport on December 8 2005
upon his arrival from South Africa. No reasons were advanced for
the unlawful action other than that Ncube was on a list of citizens
whose passports were to be withdrawn. Ncube is the chairman of Zimind,
publishers of the Zimbabwe Independent and Zimbabwe Standard
weeklies. He is also the publisher of the South African weekly Mail
& Guardian. His passport was released after the Attorney
General's Office conceded that the seizure was unlawful.
Barely a week
later the authorities descended on the Harare offices of the VOP
Radio station. They arrested three staff members and confiscated
equipment, computers and administration files. The journalists were
released without being charged after four nights at Harare Central
Police station.
Significantly,
these actions against human freedoms and rights came to the fore
in a year during which the country held its sixth parliamentary
elections. Zimbabwe has been experiencing severe economic and political
problems since 1998. The March elections, however, did not bring
much-desired renewal as the ruling Zanu-PF failed to arrest the
country's economic decline.
The launch of
Operation
Murambatsvina ('Restore Order') in May 2005 dented hopes of
a government that is determined to correct its human rights record.
Tens of thousands of people were made homeless after the government
destroyed their shacks and businesses, effectively killing the country's
burgeoning informal sector.
Undaunted by
a subsequent United Nations report slamming the country's human
rights deficit, the Zanu-PF-dominated parliament passed the controversial
Constitutional
Amendment No 17 Bill in August 2005. This bill reintroduced
the Senate and seeks to restrict the travel of individuals deemed
to be acting against the economic interests of the country.
Among other
contentious clauses, the bill strips the right to the courts by
aggrieved parties in cases where their land has been acquired by
the state. The only appeal allowed is for compensation for the improvements
on land. This violates Zimbabwe's international obligations, particularly
Article 7 (1) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights
which includes "the right to appeal to competent authority organs
against acts violating his fundamental rights".
While the government
blames its economic misfortunes on recurrent droughts and international
sanctions, it is these wanton human rights violations, which have
earned the country its pariah status. Zimbabwe was ranked the least
competitive of the 117 economies studied by the World Economic Forum.
As has become
commonplace, the police descended on demonstrators agitating for
a new constitution and arrested the leaders of the National
Constitutional Assembly. Protests against the high cost of living
were extinguished in a similar fashion, resulting in the arrest
of leaders of the umbrella Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions.
Media environment
Zimbabwe is far from conforming with its constitutional, regional
and international obliga tions as mandated under the various charters
and conventions it has signed, ratified and acceded to in order
to foster an environment that respects freedom of expression as
a fundamental human right.
This intransigence
is amply demonstrated through the enactment and amendments to legislations
that have a direct bearing on the exercise of the right to freedom
of expression. Despite wide criticism against its restrictive media
laws in the wake of the closure of four independent publications,
harsh legislation designed to protect the executive from any form
of criticism continues to find its way into the country's statutes.
Private and
government-owned media, however, cannot escape blame for failing
to put issues pertaining to human rights on the national agenda,
especially in relation to social, economic, political and cultural
rights.
While cases
pertaining to the harassment, arrest, vilification and assault of
journalists working for the private media have declined compared
to the period leading to the 2000 and 2002 parliamentary and presidential
elections, respectively, the clamped legislative media environment
is still far from ideal. The decline in cases of media freedom violations
is largely due to the absence of the critically informative Daily
News and other newspapers such as The Tribune.2
The enactment
of the Criminal
Law (Codification and Reform) Act and the tabling of the General
Laws Amendment Act, which seek to tighten sections of the Public
Order and Security Act (POSA), speak volumes of a government
still recovering from the scare of the tightly contested 2000 elections.
The repressive
Broadcasting
Services Act (BSA), Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the
Public Order and Security Act (POSA) were put in place after the
ruling Zanu-PF's near defeat in the 2000 parliamentary elections.
This triggered an unprecedented wave of violence against private
media journalists and opposition supporters ahead of the 2002 presidential
elections.
These developments
were not restricted to the print media alone. Scores of experienced
journalists and broadcasters were retrenched at the then Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation, now Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH),
and replaced by juniors handpicked by then Minister of Information
and Publicity Professor Jonathan Moyo. The retrenched media workers
are still to receive their retrenchment packages some three years
after they were made redundant.3 This
has led to most of them living from hand to mouth, while others
have relocated to South Africa, the United Kingdom and United States.
As a result,
the country's sole public broadcaster is manned by inexperienced
personnel, as evidenced by the poor quality of news and programme
content. Those still in ZBH's employ sometimes have to contend with
late salaries, while security of tenure is also never guaranteed
for those working in the private or government-controlled media,
as arrests of journalists or closure of independent publications
is always a risk.
Journalists
working for the independent press have been variously referred to
as agents of imperialism; sell-outs; enemies of the state; and lapdogs
of the former colonial master, Britain, bent on derailing the land
reform programme. These verbal attacks have provided the context
to the government's intolerance of freedom of expression.
As recently
as November 3 2005, the government-run Herald published a
vitriolic article on
veteran broadcasters
John Matinde and Brenda Moyo, journalists Sandra Nyaira, Tichaona
Sibanda and Blessing Zulu. These exiled media practitioners were
referred to as "clowns and sell-outs" determined to advance the
agenda of Western imperialist propaganda.
A meeting organised
by MISA Zimbabwe under its Community Radio Initiatives in Dete,
Matabeleland North was aborted after Zanu-PF councillor Thembinkosi
Sibanda said the organisers did not have police clearance in terms
of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). The meeting, attended
by about 1 000 people, had been scheduled for October 7 2005 to
brief residents on the Community Radio Initiatives and the concept
of community radio stations.
This extreme
intolerance has resulted in at least 90 Zimbabwean journalists,
including several of the nation's prominent media professionals,
being exiled in South Africa, Namibia, the United Kingdom and the
United States of America. Unemployment, political violence and human
rights abuses have fuelled a steady stream of emigration from Zimbabwe
since the late 1990s resulting in an estimated four million Zimbabweans
now living in the Diaspora.4
Download
full document
1. Zimbabwe
has so far signed, ratified or acceded to among others, the Windhoek
Declaration of 1991, African Charter on Human and People's Rights,
Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa and
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
2. - The
Daily News and The Daily News on Sunday were closed by the Media
and Information Commission (MIC) on September 11 2003. The Tribune
on June 10 2004 and - The Weekly Times on February 25 2005.
3. For
more information on these cases contact the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists
(ZUJ) on 00 263 (0) 11 807 800 or 00 263 (0) 91 859 485.
4. Source: http://www.misa.org/
- Zimbabwe's Exiled Press
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
|
