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Weekly Media Update 2010-19
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday May 17th 2010 - Sunday May 23th 2010
May 28, 2010

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Comment

MMPZ welcomes news this week that the Zimbabwe Media Commission has finally moved to register six new independent newspapers, among them four dailies, which will bring to an end the seven-year state-controlled Zimpapers' monopoly of the daily print media market.

For the first time since the banning of the country's most popular paper, The Daily News in 2003, Zimbabweans will again have a choice about where they obtain their news and entertainment.

But Zimbabweans should not be grateful to the government for bringing an end to the information drought that has so badly afflicted this country for so long. Zimbabweans' constitutional rights to free expression should not be dependent upon, or impeded by the whims of a government institution and a plethora of repressive media laws that will still control and hinder our rights to access information freely.

Indeed, the new publications should beware of the regulations obtaining under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act that will still affect their ability to operate freely - and under which the ZMC's predecessor closed down at least four publications for petty administrative offences. Other laws affecting journalistic activity, such as the Criminal Law (Codification) and Reform Act, still remain and will continue to curb legitimate investigation into the activities of the Executive and the uniformed forces, among other areas of interest.

Such excessive and bureaucratic controls over the activities of the media are completely unwarranted in a democratic society and violate the provisions of African and even SADC protocols on the principles of freedom of expression. Zimbabweans do not need licences to express themselves and must demand selfregulation of the media as the only solution to genuine media reforms that will free the nation's voice. Existing laws of defamation are more than adequate in seeking redress from the media, while the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe exists to resolve issues of professional misconduct.

Only the airwaves need administrative regulation due to the limited availability of bandwidth. But an independent body must implement this equitably and free of all the political interference and control that has reduced ZBC's services to the reviled and repugnant levels of a propaganda station.

Last week MMPZ commented upon the obstacles still blocking the processing of new independent broadcasting stations. Freeing the airwaves must now be the inclusive government's most pressing priority.

The "newspaper war" that the ZMC has finally sanctioned will mostly take place in Zimbabwe's main urban communities. For most Zimbabweans, radio remains their chief source of information and entertainment.

So while MMPZ welcomes ZMC's lifting by an inch of the repressive media lid, we should only celebrate the restoration of our rights to free expression when statutory media regulatory bodies, such as the ZMC, have been disbanded - and the nation's rights to freely establish and access all forms of broadcasting have been fully restored.

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