Zimbabwe: Outrage over arrests of The Zimbabwean staff

Media groups have described the arrest last week of distributors of The Zimbabwean newspaper as demonstration of the unity government’s insincerity about media reforms.

On Friday, publisher and editor of The Zimbabwean newspaper, Wilf Mbanga, said two directors of Adquest — their new distributors — were arrested on February 10 and charged with contravening the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Chapter 9:23, which criminalises the publication of “falsehoods prejudicial to the state”.

The previous day, said Mbanga, three Adquest drivers had been arrested and taken to the Law and Order Section at Harare Central, where they were separated and questioned for three hours.

“They were made to sign statements and were then released, without charge,” he said.  Police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka yesterday said he was still to get information on the incidents.

But Mbanga confirmed the arrest of Barnabas Madzimure and Fortune Mutandiro. He said the two were charged with writing and publishing false statements in the newspaper’s January 10 edition, under the headline Mnangagwa plots fight back: talk of new splinter group. The “false” statements were about an alleged meeting of some Zanu PF officials in Gweru on Christmas Day last year.

“The charge is, with all due respect, ludicrous and is in my view calculated to harass and intimidate the distributors of the newspaper,” Mbanga said.

He said Madzimure and Mutandiro had nothing to do with the distribution of the newspaper of January 10. At the time, Mbanga said, the paper was distributed by Publications Distributors.

Adquest only started distributing the paper on January 14. “This is not consistent with the press freedom promised by the government of national unity,” Mbanga said.

Nhlanhla Ngwenya, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) Zimbabwe chapter director, said the incident betrays the government’s lack of commitment to media reforms.“The whole incident exposes the fallacy of media reform rhetoric,” Ngwenya said. “It reminds all of us that we are still stuck in the old mode of intolerance of alternative sources of information. “It shows that all this talk about media reforms is just mere politicking.”

Co-ordinator of the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) Andrew Moyse said the incident shows the government’s lack of commitment to media reforms.“It just shows the lack of sincerity this government has about reforms. “It exposes the vindictiveness of the people in government and their determination to hang on to all sources of information,” Moyse said.

Last month, a correspondent for The Zimbabwean newspaper, Stanley Kwenda, fled the country claiming that he had been threatened with death by a senior police officer.

Mbanga said the police action had all the trademarks of the era of media persecution that characterised Professor Jonathan Moyo’s tenure as Minister of Information when several newspapers were banned and journalists harassed and arrested.

February 13, 2010 by Vusumuzi Sifile

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Source: www.thestandard.co.zw/local/23305-outrage-over-arrests-of-the-zimbabwean-staff.html (accessed on 15.02.10)