MEDIA-ZIMBABWE: Police Raid Newspaper Office

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nelson Z. Nyathi

HARARE, Sep 16 2003 (IPS) - Press freedom has been dealt a mortal blow in Zimbabwe with the forced closure and confiscation of equipment of the country’s only independent daily newspaper.

The Daily News was forced to shut down Sep. 12 – just a day after it lost a Supreme Court challenge to a repressive law that requires media organisations and journalists to register with a government-appointed body.

Four days later (Sep. 16), police raided the offices of the newspaper and confiscated computers and other printing materials, according to company sources.

"They are confiscating our equipment rights now," company lawyer Gugulethu Moyo told journalists Tuesday.

Since Friday, the state media had been hinting that the paper’s equipment could be confiscated.

Concern heightened when, following the Supreme Court judgement, the paper failed to appear on the streets on Sep. 12 amid reports that its executives have to answer charges of operating illegally since the daily had not registered under the law it was challenging.

The newspaper’s premises have since been sealed by the police and staff members are barred from entering its building pending registration of the newspaper. But government officials warn that registration would not be quick and automatic.

The matter got this far as publishers of The Daily News, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, sought to challenge sections of the draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) enacted in Mar. 2002.

The Act is seen as part of the government’s arsenal meant to control the country’s small but vibrant independent media.

In particular, AIPPA is under attack for restricting access to information held by public bodies and establishing a government controlled Media and Information Commission which regulates the independent media. The legislation also requires the accreditation of journalists and media houses.

In its application against AIPPA, the ANZ had maintained that several provisions of the Act, including Section 66 dealing with the registration of mass media service organisations, were unconstitutional and it could therefore not submit itself and register before the Act.

The Supreme Court, in its judgement, said it could not get into the merits of the ANZ’s application unless the company first submitted itself to the same law by agreeing to register.

ANZ has said it would register at the earliest opportunity. But Tafataona Mahoso, who heads the government-appointed Media and Information Commission set up under AIPPA, has said processing the application is a procedure that may take some time.

ANZ legal advisor Moyo says the court judgement marked "a sad day for Zimbabwe’s constitutional history" but added that the company would return to the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of AIPPA.

The company objected to several registration requirements, particularly the one which obliged ANZ to submit a detailed business plan, five-year cash flow projections and very personal details about its directors including their political affiliations to the Media and Information Commission.

Apparently, ANZ was not the only organisation to challenge AIPPA. The Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe has a pending Supreme Court challenge against AIPPA.

IJAZ is contesting the constitutionality of Sections 79, 80, 83 and 85 of the Act, which prescribe compulsory registration of journalists and spell out punitive measures for journalists, who break a code of conduct, as they violate freedom of expression.

Commenting on the closure of The Daily News, the president of IJAZ, Abel Mutsakani, said: "We note with great concern that the Supreme Court was so quick to give a ruling on this particular case and yet the court is sitting on IJAZ’s case challenging the very existence of the media commission."

The closure of The Daily News has been met with a flurry of condemnations across the country.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (Zimbabwe chapter) says the sudden closure of the paper robs the country of one of the few alternative voices in an increasingly restricted space where Zimbabweans can freely express themselves.

Political scientist John Makumbe says Zimbabwe is now essentially a media blackout with the readers now knowing only what the ruling ZANU-PF party wants them to.

"This is precisely what we have been saying that the judiciary itself is now partisan," he says. "Normally the role of the court is to deal with disputes between citizens but in this case the court is saying obey an unjust law."

Paul Themba Nyathi of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change says: "This is an indication of a fascist state that does not tolerate alternative voices; but this is a temporary set-back. The people of Zimbabwe will prevail in bringing the paper back on the streets where it belongs."

Since its founding in 1999, The Daily News gave voice to civic society as well as the then fledgling opposition at the commencement of Zimbabwe’s decline which coincided with increasing repression in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 2000.

As a result, the paper has been a thorn in the side of a government long used to a monopoly of opinion. It has had to contend with open hostility and intimidation from the government.

On Apr. 22, 2000, a bomb exploded at its premises, destroying the paper’s printing presses. Most people suspect either the government or its supporters for the attack since to date no one has been convicted for the bombing.

This was one of three bombings the paper had overcome to maintain its vanguard position.

Increasingly, the government had used subtler means to silence the newspaper.

In Nov. 2001, the Zimbabwe Investment Centre charged the ANZ with breaking Zimbabwean investment laws by inviting new shareholders into the company. The newspaper’s founding editors were arrested and later released on bail.

But the paper scored a victory against AIPPA in May this year when the Supreme Court passed a landmark judgment declaring Section 80 of the Act unconstitutional. The Court ruled in favour of the paper’s founding editor, Geoff Nyarota and reporter Lloyd Mudiwa both whom had been arrested and charged under this section for publishing "falsehoods".

Even then, the harassment of journalists has increased since the enactment of AIPPA.

Nyarota was arrested six times in the last two years alone, while Amnesty International says about 44 journalists have been arrested since Jan. 2001 and three foreign correspondents forced to leave the country due to accreditation restrictions.

The closure of The Daily News means Zimbabweans no longer have an independent daily newspaper.

The state has a monopoly of broadcasting and Zimbabwe is about the only country in Southern Africa with this distinction.

However there are two alternative radio stations that broadcast news from outside the country’s borders.

The two stations: Studio 7, a programme on Zimbabwe broadcast by Voice of America from Washington every week day for just an hour and Voice of the People which transmits from the Netherlands via shortwave, will now become more relevant alternatives to the propagandistic dosages of the state media.