A Zimbabwe court has set aside a decision by country's media commission not to license the Daily News newspaper. The newspaper was ordered to stop publishing in 2003 for criticising the government. In March 2005, the country's supreme court overturned the original ban, but the media commission twice denied its application for a license, Reuters has reported.
The order coincided with an accusation by a rights group in New York that Harare was launching a new assault on the country's remaining private media through a wave of criminal prosecutions and arrests.
Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), publisher of Daily News and its sister publication Daily News on Sunday, has been stuck in legal wrangles with the Media and Information Commission (MIC) since the paper – fiercely critical of President Robert Mugabe's government – was closed in September 2003 for operating without a licence.
On Wednesday, a High Court judge ordered the MIC to consider afresh an application by the paper to resume operations, saying the commission's chairman had been found biased against the Daily News when its last license bid was rejected last year.
Judge Rita Makarau said she had no authority to order the appointment of a new commission, but advised MIC chairman Tafataona Mahoso to remove himself from the case. Mahoso said the commission was yet to decide on an appeal. "We have not yet made a decision. We will be reading the ruling in the next few hours," Mahoso told Reuters. In July last, the MIC rejected the Daily News's second application for a licence since its closure, saying the firm had breached tough media laws enacted in 2002.
"The government's forced closure of the Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday has been shown to be unjust at every level of Zimbabwe's justice system," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). "The newspapers must be allowed to reopen immediately and unconditionally."
"This ruling revives hope of seeing the Daily News on the news stands again," Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. "The supreme court already issued a similar decision on 14 March 2005 without the MIC complying. As a matter of urgency, the MIC must conform to these court rulings and issue accreditation to the Daily News' journalists at once."
According to RSF, a milestone in the drawn-out legal wrangle between the Daily News and the government was reached on March 14, 2005 when the supreme court quashed the MIC's ban on the newspaper, forcing the MIC to reconsider the ANZ's request for a licence within 60 days. Although the deadline expired on May 15, the MIC waited until June 16 to consider the ANZ's request.
After two days of deliberations, the MIC's chairman refused to make any statement, saying the newspapers would be notified when a decision had been made, without explaining what he meant. The MIC finally announced its refusal to give the ANZ a licence on July 18, as a result of which the ANC immediately challenged the decision before the Harare High Court.
The legal battle between the ANZ and the MIC has gone from court to court ever since the Daily News and its Sunday edition were banned in September 2003. In February 2004, the battle reached the supreme court, which took a year to issue a ruling. Because of enormous financial difficulties and its desire not to expose its journalists to the possibility of arrest, Daily News decided to stop publishing pending a resolution of the dispute.
Meanwhile, the Association of Zimbabwe Journalists in the UK (AZJ-UK) has joined the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) and others fighting for press freedom in Zimbabwe, in calling on the Mugabe government repeal the new General Laws Amendment Act which places more hurdles on journalists trying to do their job.
The new law was passed by Parliament last year but became effective legislation after being signed by Acting President Joice Mujuru on Friday last. Under the law, journalists or citizens convicted of publishing false information or statements that are prejudicial to the state or are likely to cause, promote or incite public disorder or adversely affect the security or economic interests of Zimbabwe, face up to five years behind bars. Zimbabwean journalists already face up to 20 years in jail for committing the same offences under the government's Criminal Codification Act enacted last year.
AZJ-UK secretary, Sandra Nyaira, said: "It is bad enough that we already have a plethora of laws in place to make life difficult for journalists trying to do their job and earn a living. We urge the government to seriously re-look into this and repeal or amend all Acts that make Zimbabwe one of the 10 worst environments in which one can work as a journalist."
"It was just last month that we had from Loice Matanda-Moyo of the Attorney General's office that the government had promised to repeal some of the cruel media laws such AIPPA, only to hear of another harsh addition. This will certainly weigh down heavily on an already burdened and harassed media," said Nyaira.
The Word Association of Newspapers (WAN) ranks Zimbabwe among the three worst places for journalists in the world. The other two are Iran and Uzbekistan.
ZUJ national vice president Njabulo Ncube said in a statement: "The new law comes at a time when journalists are clamouring for the repeal of other bad media laws and comes hard on the heels of the passing of the Criminal Codification Act by government last June which will see journalists facing up to 20 years in prison.
"A cocktail of all these laws will now make it difficult for journalists to perform their tasks without fear or favour and we call on the government to repeal all these laws."
The new law also revises fines courts can impose on journalists convicted of publishing falsehoods from Z$100 000 to $10 million, while journalists as well as citizens found guilty of insulting or ridiculing President Robert Mugabe will now pay a fine of Z$2 million, up from $20 000 or alternatively jailed for up to a year.
The latest restrictions on the Press come barely two months after the Harare administration promised the African Commission on Human and People's Rights that it was planning to repeal some of its harshest media laws.
Apart from the fear of being imprisoned for insulting Mugabe or publishing false information, journalists in Zimbabwe also have to deal with stringent requirements to register with the government's Media and Information Commission in order to practice in the country.
Journalists, who must renew their registration after every 12 months, face up to two years in jail for practising without being registered with the commission. Newspaper companies are also required to register after every two years with those failing to comply with the requirement being forced to close and their equipment seized by the state.
At least a hundred journalists have been arrested over the past six years for violating the government's press and security laws while four newspapers, including the country's biggest circulating daily, the Daily News, were forcibly shut down by the government over the past three years.
On Thursday New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said Harare had renewed attacks on the country's private media, citing among others, the case of six officials of private radio Voice of the People, due in court on Friday to answer charges of operating without a licence. Police arrested the officials last December after a raid on the station, which gathers news in Zimbabwe and feeds it into Radio Netherlands for broadcast back to the southern African country.
"The Zimbabwean government is using criminal charges to muzzle independent reporting and criticism," said Paul Simo, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "This crackdown targets media that criticise government institutions, officials and the ruling part," Simo said.
The government argues that its laws, which also forbid foreigners from working permanently in the country, are meant to bring professionalism in a media it accuses of spearheading a Western propaganda campaign in retaliation for Zimbabwe's seizure of white-owned farms for landless blacks.
In the last five years, Zimbabwe's government has enacted laws that give it discretionary control over who may operate a media outlet and practice journalism, as well as broad powers to prosecute persons critical of the government. In March, Human Rights Watch documented how the government has selectively used these laws to restrict independent media activity through intimidation, arbitrary arrests, and criminal prosecutions of journalists. These practices violate international guarantees to freedom of expression.
Under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act of 2002, owners of media houses who do not register with the Media and Information Commission face up to two years in prison if convicted. An amendment passed on January 7 2005 provides for criminal penalties to journalists who operate without accreditation.
The Broadcasting Services Act of 2001 reinforced the state's monopoly over all electronic broadcasting. The law gives the Minister of State for Information and Publicity the authority to determine who gets a broadcasting license and under what circumstances, to tighten restrictions on the nature, quality and quantity of information broadcast through radio and television, and to ban broadcasters who are deemed to be a threat to national security.
The Public Order and Security Act of 2002 introduced a range of overbroad and vague criminal offences that trammel the right to free expression. The law criminalizes criticism of the president, whether his person or his office. It also prohibits the publication of a false statement that prejudices or is intended to prejudice the country's defense or economic interests, or which undermines or is intended to undermine public confidence in a law enforcement agency, and the holding of a public gathering without giving the police four days' written notice.
