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Government media suffocates cases of human rights violations
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-32
Monday 7^th August – Sunday August 13^th 2006

THE government media this week demonstrated their unreliability as credible sources of information by their continued suffocation of cases of human rights violations in the country, especially those that implicated government or state security agents. Only the private media publicised these developments. For example, besides reporting government’s censure of those behind the alleged threats against Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono following his blitz on ‘money laundering’ (The Herald and Chronicle 7/8), the official media showed bias in their coverage of other human rights abuses committed under the exercise.

Notably, they generally remained quiet over reports of degrading body searches for cash conducted by state security agents manning RBZ roadblocks to stamp out money laundering. Only one such incident was reported in The Sunday Mail (13/8) – that of a man whose private parts were exposed during a search. But even then, the incident, described by the paper as an "overzealous" act, was not interpreted as a rights abuse. Moreover, it was buried deep in a story that sought to justify the blitz.

Apart from the stripping case, none of the six reports the government media carried on the subject focussed on the other cases of human rights violations exposed in the private media. Instead, two of the stories condemned the Law Society of Zimbabwe for daring to challenge the legality of Project Sunrise’s emergency powers under which the searches were being conducted.

But while the government Press at least made some effort to report these issues, ZBH, the national public broadcaster, completely ignored them.

In contrast, the private media devoted 32 stories to reporting and condemning these violations, 21 of which were carried by privately owned electronic media and the remaining 11 stories by private papers. The reports recorded 15 incidents, including beatings, perpetrated against ordinary members of society, civic and labour leaders, white commercial farmers and opposition party members. The perpetrators of the alleged violations were mostly state security agents.

In one incident, The Zimbabwe Independent (11/8) reported on a court case in which State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa was alleged to have beaten up a Rusape policeman and confiscated a rifle from another. The revelations were made in the trial of Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa on charges of trying to obstruct the course of justice. The Herald (9/8) censored this disclosure despite covering the same event.

In another incident, Studio 7 (8/8), New Zimbabwe.com (9/8) and The Daily Mirror (11/8) reported on the arrest by police of MDC MPs Job Sikhala and Goodrich Chimbaira and 20 other people following protests involving up to 5,000 demonstrators against massive increases in water charges in Chitungwiza.

Again, readers of the government media remained entirely unaware of this.

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