The Zimbabwe government has directed the country’s largest journalism training school to accept only students who have completed a controversial national youth-service training programme — blamed by critics for brainwashing youths into zealots of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party.
Churches and human rights groups say graduates of the training programme, which is run by former and serving military officers, routinely hunt down supporters of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), beating, torturing and sometimes murdering them.
The government, which strongly denies that graduates of the youth programme victimise opposition supporters, had said in the past that state tertiary colleges should enrol only students holding national-service certificates. The government had, however, not insisted on the state-owned Harare Polytechnic’s division of mass communication abiding by this requirement.
But the government’s Media and Information Commission (MIC) on Monday last week issued a written directive, a copy of which was shown to independent news service ZimOnline, stating that the journalism school should ensure all new students had “passed through [national youth service] training centres, have undertaken community work, and possess five Ordinary levels passes and two passes at Advanced level”.
The MIC — accused of forcibly closing down newspapers critical of Mugabe’s government and ordering the arrest of scores of independent journalists — also directed that a committee of selectors be set up to vet and approve applicants to the school of journalism.
The state media watchdog nominated Harare Polytechnic vice-principal Runyararo Magadzire to head the selectors’ panel, which it said will also include two external members from local media houses nominated by itself.
A senior official from the Department of National and Strategic Studies will also be appointed on the panel, according to the MIC.
The Department of National and Strategic Studies runs political education courses at government tertiary institutions that are compulsory for all students and which mainly focus on the history of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence from colonial rule and the roles played by Mugabe and Zanu-PF in that struggle.
Harare Polytechnic principal Stephen Raza was not immediately available for comment on the new recruitment criteria for students, which observers say is an open attempt by Mugabe’s government to ensure the college that trains the bulk of journalists in the country produces pliable and uncritical journalists.
However, sources at the college said Raza and his administration had written to MIC chairperson Tafataona Mahoso questioning the new student enrolment requirements.
Mahoso — found by the Supreme Court to have shown bias against the banned Daily News newspaper when he rejected an application by the paper for a licence to resume publishing — was not reachable for comment on the matter.
Under the government’s tough Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, Mahoso’s MIC is tasked with facilitating the training of journalists. But the controversial law does not stipulate that the commission should lay down enrolment rules for prospective journalism students.
Apart from the Harare Polytechnic’s division of mass communication there are three other smaller and privately owned journalism training schools in Zimbabwe.
The attempt by the MIC to control student enrolment at the largest school of journalism comes as the government is also in the process of enacting legislation to allow state agents to intercept internet and cellphone communications between private individuals and organisations in the country.
The Interception of Communications Bill proposes to also empower state agents to open private mail sent by ordinary post as well as through licensed courier-service providers.
Zimbabwe already has a raft of harsh laws that hinder the free flow of information while imposing severe restrictions on journalists and newspapers in the country.
For example, journalists in the crisis-hit Southern African country are liable to imprisonment for up to two years if caught practising without a licence from the MIC. Newspapers are also required to register with the MIC, with those failing to do so facing closure and seizure of their equipment by the police.
Zimbabwe, described by the World Association of Newspapers as one of the worst places for journalists in the world, has in the past three years shut down at least four independent newspapers, including the Daily News, which at its closure in 2003 was the largest circulating daily paper in the country.
