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Newsday vendors attacked
MISA-Zimbabwe
February 08, 2011

Newspaper vendors selling the independent daily , Newsday, in Harare were on Monday 7 January 2011, attacked by demonstrators' who were part of a ZANU PF youth demonstration against what they dubbed 'slow implementation of indigenisation policies' in the country.

The demonstration which was allegedly cleared by the police who deployed their personnel to man the march that was to be held from the ZANU PF Harare Province offices to the Town House turned rowdy and saw the looting and attack on business premises in the city.

According to the Newsday, a number of vendors stopped selling copies of the paper while others sold them in hiding after a number of them were assaulted or had copies of the paper confiscated or destroyed. The paper alleges that the youth said the Newsday was anti government and anti-ZANU PF.

The attack comes less than a month after soldiers from 42 infantry Battalion in Gutu allegedly banned vendors from selling Masvingo province weekly independent newspaper, The Mirror, after it published a story alleging that army personnel had beaten up people at Mupandawana growth point on Christmas Eve.

MISA-Zimbabwe position

MISA-Zimbabwe views the continued destroying of licensed newspapers as an attack to freedom of expression and the citizens of Zimbabwe's right to access information as outlined in the Windhoek and the Banjul Declaration.

MISA-Zimbabwe therefore urgently calls on SADCs' Chairperson and Facilitator to impress upon the country's three main political parties that the media remains an integral part of any democratic political transition processes. Zimbabwe's media plays a critical role in keeping the citizenry informed on the current transitional process and in particular at this juncture, the hyped constitutional referendum and elections. The media should therefore be allowed to operate freely.

In the same light it is imperative that all unlawful arrests of journalists, media workers, ordinary citizens and confiscation of independent press in the exercise of their right to freedom of expression and access to information cease immediately. This can only be achieved through ensuring the government open up the media environment before the holding of such national processes and ensuring the security of the press and persons in this transition is upheld.

MISA-Zimbabwe is also disturbed by the conspicuous silence of the Zimbabwe Media Commission in the face of continued attacks of the media, noting that the ZMC has a role in the transition to ensure the industry's growth rather than the registration function alone. MISA-Zimbabwe therefore impresses on the need to strengthening of the Voluntary Media Council as the most effective mechanism of upholding media ethics in the country as opposed to the statutory regulatory framework.

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