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MIC brands MISA agent of regime change
MISA-Zimbabwe
October 02, 2006

The state-controlled Media and Information Commission MIC) says the government should probe the leadership of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) for what it described as its "anti-government propaganda" activities.

In an article published in the government-controlled Sunday Mail on 1 October 2006, MIC executive chairman Dr Tafataona Mahoso said the Commission had written to the Ministry of Information and Publicity requesting government to probe ZUJ for joining the anti-Zimbabwe lobby.

Mahoso also singled out Nunurai Jena, ZUJ’s provincial secretary in Mashonaland West Province on allegations of stringing for the Voice of America’s Studio 7 in Washington. The MIC said it had since written to the police to investigate Jena.

The MIC claimed that it had documents in its possession in which ZUJ wrote to the Royal Netherlands Embassy and UNESCO requesting for funds to allegedly advance its anti-Zimbabwe lobby activities.

Background
On 28 September 2006 MIC attacked MISA-Zimbabwe for portraying itself to the donor community as "regime change activists" who will repeal the country’s restrictive media laws.

In a statement, published in The Herald on 29 September, the MIC attacked MISA-Zimbabwe together with the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) and the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) accusing the three organisations of convening clandestine meetings under the guise of media law reform. The three organisations constitute the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ).

Mahoso’s statement was issued on the eve of a two-day parliamentary lobbying conference organised by MAZ to push for the repeal of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and Broadcasting Services Act (BSA), among other repressive media laws.

He claimed that the purpose of the meeting which opened in Harare on 29 September 2006 was to create "a stilted platform from which the activists may engage in an orgy of anti-Zimbabwe diatribe intended to coincide with other recently staged events".

The meeting proceeded as scheduled and was attended by members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications chaired by Leo Mugabe who was also in attendance.

By referring to what he termed "recently staged events", Mahoso was apparently alluding to the 13 September 2006 nationwide marches organised by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) which resulted in the brutal police assault of the ZCTU leaders leading to the hospitalisation of secretary-general Wellington Chibhebhe.

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