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Zimbabwe
commission hounds unregistered journalists at arts festival
ZimOnline
April 29, 2006
http://www.zimonline.co.za/headdetail.asp?ID=12032
HARARE - Zimbabwe's
Media and Information Commission (MIC) is investigating journalists
covering an arts festival taking place in Harare and could order
the arrest of foreign and local reporters covering the event without
its permission.
Under the government's
tough Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), journalists
and newspapers must obtain licences from the MIC in order to practise
or publish in Zimbabwe.
Newspapers that
breach the licence law face closure and seizure of their equipment
by the government while reporters who carry out their work without
a licence face up to two years in jail.
MIC official
Munyaradzi Nyamagodo is said to be leading the probe into hundreds
of journalists that have flocked to the popular Harare
International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) and is said to have
demanded that organisers submit to him a full list of all journalists
covering the festival.
Both Nyamagodo
and MIC boss, Tafataona Mahoso were not available to explain what
had prompted the investigation or what action they would take against
any journalists who may be found reporting on the festival without
being licenced to do so.
But an MIC official,
who did not want to be named because he is not authorised to speak
to the Press, told ZimOnline: "It is easy to catch them. We
are aware that all media personnel accredited to cover the event
will have green bangles strapped on the wrists.
"We will
target anyone with the green bangles and ask them to produce their
MIC Press cards. Anyone found wanting would be arrested because
they are in violation of AIPPA."
In a letter
sent out yesterday to media houses covering the six day arts festival
that began last Tuesday, HIFA media relations executive Jill Day
alerts the news publishers that the MIC is probing the licence status
of journalists reporting on the festival.
"Mr Nyamagodo
from the Media and Information Commission has requested a list of
all the journalists we have accredited to HIFA …. I am sure
your accreditation with MIC is in order but I thought I should draw
this to you attention," reads part of Day's letter to media
houses.
Zimbabwe has
some of the toughest ever media laws and is rated by the World Association
of Newspapers as among the three worst places for journalists in
the world. The other two are the former Soviet Union Republic of
Uzbekistan and Iran.
Foreign journalists
wishing to cover events in the troubled southern African country
must first be vetted and cleared by the Ministry of Information
and then they have to apply for temporary accreditation to the MIC
and pay US$600 for a temporary licence.
Local journalists
need no clearance from the Information Ministry but are required
to fork out Z$250 000 if registering for the first time or Z$200
000 if renewing registration.
At least a hundred
local and foreign journalists have been arrested in the past three
years for breaching some of the government's harsh media laws although
none have been successfully prosecuted.
The country's
biggest and non-government-owned daily, the Daily News, was shut
down three years ago and its equipment seized because it had not
registered with the MIC. - ZimOnline
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