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Self regulation - Yes, Statutory regulation - No
Nyasha Nyakunu, MISA-Zimbabwe
Extracted from Monthly Media Alerts Digest April 2006
May 04, 2006

A leading human rights lawyer Jacob Mafume on 3 May 2006 described Zimbabwe’s media laws as obsolete and urged the government to enact laws that guarantee media freedom as well as protect self-regulation of the industry.

Speaking during the World Press Freedom Day celebrations in Harare on Wednesday, Mafume said in terms of the Banjul Declaration on the Principles of Freedom of Expression in Africa and the Windhoek Declaration, it was "commonsensical" that journalists should self-regulate.

"If surveyors, dentists and lawyers among other professions are self-regulatory, the media can also easily self-regulate. There should therefore be no debate on this issue," he said.

"We should therefore come up with laws that protect self-regulation and constitutional provisions that guarantee media freedom."

This year’s celebrations organised by the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe which comprises MISA-Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ), and Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, were held under the theme: Self Regulation – Yes. State Controlled Regulation – N0.

The Alliance is forging ahead with plans to establish an Independent Media Council.

Deputy Minister of Information and Publicity Bright Matonga who was the guest speaker, said the government fully supported the principle of self-regulation.

Matonga was, however, non-committal if not dodgy, as to what steps the government was taking to amend or repeal the offending sections of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) to pave way for self-regulation of the media vis-à-vis the existence of the statutory Media and Information Commission (MIC).

This also comes in the wake of a damning report by the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) on Zimbabwe’s human rights that also urged the government to repeal AIPPA, the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and Broadcasting Services Act (BSA).

Matonga who was at pains to defend AIPPA could not be drawn into commenting on why the government continued to retain confidence in the MIC despite a finding by the High Court that its chairman Dr Tafataona Mahoso was biased when it came to the impartial adjudication of the legal battle by the banned Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe to be granted an operating licence.

He also refused to comment on unchallenged reports that the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), had taken over the Zimbabwe Mirror Newspapers Group, publishers of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror.

MISA-Zimbabwe Chairperson Thomas Deve said the reign of former Information and Publicity Minister Jonathan Moyo which saw the closure of newspapers under AIPPA and the retrenchment of seasoned broadcasters at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings, was a legacy never to be cherished.

Deve said this era had given way to embedded journalism, euphemistically referred to as patriotism in Zimbabwe with some journalists being literally turned into zombies.

"Our hearts are still sore and many wounded souls still hope that justice will one day prevail when such authors of poisonous … media laws will confess their evil machinations before our own truth and reconciliation commission," he said.

Mafume said it was "nonsensical" to continue hanging on to laws such as AIPPA, and BSA under the guise of protecting national sovereignty particularly in this era of the convergence and divergence offered by Information Communication Technologies.

The fallacy of restricting media diversity and pluralism had been proved as such through the coming on stream of online publications such as ZimOnline and independent radio stations such as the VOA’s Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa which are all manned by Zimbabwean media practitioners in the diaspora, he said.

These radio stations and online publications which beam into Zimbabwe, were proving to be much more popular that even government ministers were keen to be interviewed by them, said Mafume.

"What it means is that for one to establish a private radio station that beams into Zimbabwe one has to do so from outside Zimbabwe or America.

"The media is about business. This about the economy and the state should invest in its own media.

"We need to employ our own people in Zimbabwe in order to generate the revenue that will drive the economy."

He said laws such as AIPPA, BSA and the proposed Interceptions of Communications Act, entailed huge investments in security which the country could ill afford.

In apparent reference to an article authored by the Secretary for Information and Publicity George Charamba published in The Herald on the same day, the human rights lawyer dismissed as contradictory the notion that media freedom was a lesser freedom to national sovereignty.

In his article Charamba said: "Nowhere in human history has any nation sacrificed its sovereignty for a lesser freedom, least of all press freedom."

Mafume, however, said sovereignty was now being defined and strengthened through guaranteeing and protecting the freedoms of citizens and not necessarily in terms of geographical confines.

This new definition of sovereignty is aptly captured by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the Banjul Declaration and the Windhoek Declaration, among others, he said.

"Under the Banjul Declaration the sovereign people of Africa agreed that media freedom is a fundamental right. It is therefore nonsensical to say media freedom is a privilege. It is clear that media freedom is a higher right and not a privilege."

The issue of sovereignty, Mafume said, had now transcended borders, and was now defined in terms of shared values and principles hence the existence of the Windhoek Declaration and Banjul Declaration, among others.

"Sovereignty is guaranteed and better strengthened through the enjoyment of greater freedoms and rights by citizens of any given country," argued Mafume.

He gave examples of African countries such as Mali, Uganda, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia that had several radio stations as countries that had embraced the vital role played by a diverse, pluralistic and independent media without sacrificing their national sovereignties.

"What is good for a media practitioner in South Africa should therefore be equally good for a media practitioner in Zimbabwe," he said.

Earlier, scores of journalists marched through central business district in Harare carrying placards demanding the repeal of AIPPA and the return of the banned Daily News, Daily News on Sunday, The Tribune and Weekly Times.

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