HARARE, 8 January (IRIN) - There are renewed fears that the Zimbabwean government is intensifying its campaign against the few remaining privately owned media organisations in the wake of severe press criticisms of its human rights violations, a dismal economic record and President Robert Mugabe's plans to extend his stay in power by another two years.
The government has stripped newspaper publisher Trevor Ncube of his Zimbabwean citizenship on the grounds that he is Zambian, as his father was born there and later emigrated to Zimbabwe.
Media analysts told IRIN the Zimbabwean government allegedly wanted to use the citizenship issue as a means of closing down Ncube's two Zimbabwean newspapers or hand them to pro-government individuals. "As a media owner in Zimbabwe, you have to be a Zimbabwean citizen; if you are not, you cannot own more than 40 percent of a media company," Ncube said.
According to the analysts, stripping Ncube of his citizenship could force the country's two remaining independent weekly newspapers, which Ncube publishes, The Standard and The Zimbabwe Independent, a business publication, to close, or enable the authorities to hand control of the newspapers to people sympathetic to the ruling ZANU-PF party. Ncube also publishes the South African weekly newspaper, The Mail and Guardian.
Zimbabwe is home to the descendants of tens of thousands of Zambians, Malawians and Mozambicans who arrived in the country in the mid-1950s as migrant labourers during the British colonial Federation of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (now Malawi), to work on farms and mines.
The government contends that Ncube should have renounced his Zambian citizenship and "regularised" his Zimbabwean status in 2001 after the Citizenship Act came into force, barring dual citizenship.
Ncube, a Zimbabwean passport holder, is contesting the removal of his citizenship in the High Court, and said he knows no home other than Zimbabwe and all his actions were in accordance with the new citizenship law.
"I took an oath before a citizenship officer - that was three years ago. At the end of the day, one is puzzled and I don't understand what is going on, and that is when conspiracy theories set in," Ncube told the Mail and Guardian.
"There is no entitlement on my part to Zambian citizenship merely because my father was born there," Ncube said in court papers. "He was a citizen of Zimbabwe at the time of my birth, as will appear from his national registration in Zimbabwe."
A high court judge issued an order against the state in 2006, requiring it to render null and void the invalidation and withdrawal of Ncube's passport.
In 2003 Zimbabwe's Media and Information Commission (MIC) banned the country's largest selling newspaper, The Daily News, and its sister publication, The Daily News on Sunday, and in 2004 shut down independent newspapers The Tribune and The Weekly Times, which were also seen as critical of government policies.
The government has also used other avenues to muzzle dissenting media: The Daily Mirror, a privately owned newspaper, was taken over by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), part of the state security service, while the Financial Gazette, another weekly newspaper, was also bought out by the CIO.
Joy TV, the country's only independent television station, had its licence withdrawn; radio station Voice of The People had its premises bombed by unknown assailants and Capital Radio was banned.
The MIC also recently hiked newspaper registration charges, which could force the few remaining community newspapers to close if they cannot afford the fees, media analysts said, and is also threatening to withdraw the accreditation of freelance journalist Nunurai Jena on the suspicion that he might be working for Voice of America, the US-based radio and TV broadcaster, which the authorities have called an anti-government organisation.
The action against the publisher has provoked condemnation by The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ), The World Association of Newspapers, the World Editors Forum, the Freedom of Expression Institute and the International Press Institute.
"What this will do is to bring focus on Zimbabwe again on the issue of press freedom. The government is always complaining about negative publicity, and such developments will certainly bring the spotlight on Zimbabwe," said ZUJ president Matthew Takaona.
Tafataona Mahoso, chairman of the MIC, which been instrumental in the closure of independent media organisations, denied that stripping Ncube of his citizenship would culminate in the closure or seizure of his newspaper interests.
"The MIC learned of Ncube's difficulties from the press and has never in any way been party to this case. We wonder why the publisher [Ncube] would choose to instigate such a campaign of vilification against the MIC and the nation," Mahoso said in a statement.
However, the author of a column published in the state-controlled newspaper, The Herald, thought to be a senior government official, signed off by saying, "Trevor [Ncube], best wishes for 2007, the year of closure."
