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Inclusive government - Index of articles
In
encouraging move, leading international broadcasters allowed to
return to Zimbabwe
Reporters
Sans Frontiers
July 30, 2009
http://www.rsf.org/In-encouraging-move-leading.html
Reporters Without Borders
welcomes the Zimbabwean government's decision to allow the
British Broadcasting Corporation and the US television news channel
CNN to work in Zimbabwe again. The BBC has not had a presence in
the country since its Harare correspondent, Joseph Winter, was expelled
in 2001. CNN had to pull out of Zimbabwe in 2002.
"After many years of government mistrust of international
news media, the return of these two leading international broadcasters
is a decisive step in the restoration of press freedom in Zimbabwe,"
Reporters Without Borders said.
"We encourage Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's government
to move ahead with plans to amend the 2002 press law, in order to
eliminate draconian articles that were used to suppress independent
media," the press freedom organisation added. "The promised
Zimbabwe Media Council must be quickly created and its members must
be guaranteed complete independence."
The government gave the BBC and CNN permission to resume working
in Zimbabwe today. The two news organisations have not yet announced
when they will reopen their bureaux or be officially represented
in the country again.
The decision was a result of a meeting on 19 July between information
minister Webster Shamu, the BBC's world news editor, Jon Williams,
and its Africa bureau editor, Sarah Halfpenny. Shamu met CNN's
Johannesburg bureau chief, Kim Norgaard, a few days later.
Reporters Without Borders has been told that the Zimbabwe Media
Council's installation is imminent. Promised since early 2008,
this new independent entity will be tasked with issuing licences
to newspapers and will hopefully pave the way for the independent
press's reemergence in Zimbabwe.
The parliament is due to begin a series of meetings on 3 August
with a view to choosing the council's commissioners.
Reporters Without Borders has long been campaigning for the reform
of the 2002 Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the 2007 Interception
of Communications Act, which together gave the government almost
total control over the Zimbabwe's media.
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