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MIC allegations against the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ)
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-39
Monday September 25th 2006 - Sunday October 1st 2006

MMPZ is obliged to dismiss the allegations made by the government-appointed Media and Information Commission against the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) during the week as entirely false and a dishonest distortion of an open and legitimate intention. The attack came almost as a response to an invitation to the commission’s chairman, Dr Tafataona Mahoso, to attend a media law reform workshop organized by the Alliance, which comprises the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, MISA and MMPZ.

The Herald (29/9) and ZBH radios (29/9, 7 & 8am) reported the MIC attacking the three civic organisations for "portraying themselves to their foreign donors as ‘regime change activists’" who would repeal AIPPA and POSA by "clandestinely" convening "conferences under the guise of media law reform".

Without challenging these claims or discussing the purpose of the workshop, these media allowed the MIC to vilify the organisations without question, claiming that the workshop was a "foreign-sponsored propaganda exercise" whose "real purpose" 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". This was apparently a reference to the abortive protests staged by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions the previous week.

The Herald did carry a comment by ZUJ chairman, Mathew Takaona, denying that his organisation was involved in any "clandestine" activities at the end of the article but claimed it could not obtain comment from MISA. No effort was made to seek comment from MMPZ.

A more detailed response to the allegations appeared in the online news portal, The Zimbabwe Situation (1/10). In an IFEX report, the portal quoted MISA dismissing the commission’s allegations, saying that contrary to its claims that MAZ had "deliberately excluded key stakeholders" such as the ministries of information and justice, MAZ had actually invited "well in advance" Acting Information Minister Paul Mangwana, as well as the MIC itself.

MMPZ endorses these observations that clearly demonstrate there could not have been anything remotely "clandestine" about the workshop, which was actually held to discuss the state of media law in Zimbabwe with members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications. Eight members of the PPC attended the meeting, including its chairman, Leo Mugabe, together with several representatives from civil society from around the country.

Clearly, the deliberate distortion of the truth and the hypocrisy expressed in the MIC statement demonstrates the depths of dishonesty the institution is prepared to employ in order to defend its intolerance of any debate about the need to encourage media development by repealing draconian laws that throttle the free flow of information.

It is regrettable that a government institution so cynically distorts constructive efforts by civil society to engage the authorities in a debate about the need for media law reform.

In another development during the week, SW Radio Africa (4/10) reported that state security agents had raided the Zimbabwe distribution office of the UK-based Zimbabwean newspaper. The paper’s publisher Wilf Mbanga told the station that four detectives visited the premises of the distributor inquiring how the paper was brought into the country and whether duty had been paid for it. Reportedly, the detectives seized some documents relating to the paper’s distribution.

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