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Rights abuses and jamming of foreign-based private radio stations
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2007-8
Monday February 26^th 2007 – Sunday March 4^th 2007

THIS week The Herald (1/3) allowed Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga to portray the authorities’ tyrannical practices as standard government procedure.

The paper passively reported Matonga’s response to a question in Parliament officially confirming – for the first time – that government was jamming foreign-based private radio stations’ broadcasts as it "cannot allow foreigners to invade our airwaves without authority" adding that the authorities "will continue to do it" to "protect our sovereignty".  

Without condemning the provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act, which grants government such repressive powers, The Herald allowed him to present jamming as a common practice, falsely claiming, "If you go to England you will not receive any foreign radio station".

Such blatant falsehoods passed without scrutiny.

It was only the private electronic media - particularly Studio 7 (28/2) and SW Radio Africa (1/3) - which viewed such remarks as a reflection of the authorities’ disregard for Zimbabweans’ constitutional right to free expression, including the right to receive information without hindrance. 

Thanks to the private electronic media and the privately owned papers the continued rights violations by state security agents did reach the public domain, albeit to restricted audiences.

During the week they carried 16 stories about human rights abuses. Half of these were new incidents, while the remainder were follow-up reports and general assessments of the country’s poor human rights record. 

The new incidents included reports on the arrest of civic activists and university students; the assault and torture of civilians and suspected MDC supporters and the break-up of protests against government’s planned takeover of Bulawayo’s water reticulation.

State security agents were implicated in all cases. Again, the government media censored the incidents. 

Surprisingly, all mainstream domestic media ignored the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum’s report noting a disturbing increase in human rights violations by state security agents in 2006. The report, which only appeared in several niche market private electronic media outlets (1/3), revealed that a total of 5,792 cases of human rights violations were recorded in 2006 compared with 4,200 documented in 2005.

The 2006 cases, the human rights watchdog noted, constituted slightly more than a quarter of all the violations it recorded since it began publicizing its statistical reports in July 2001.

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