Zim keeps up press clampdown
2003-09-23 14:47
Harare - The authorities in Zimbabwe on Tuesday continued their crackdown on the independent Daily News as police prepared to charge the paper's journalists for working without accreditation.
"Police would like to question our journalists and have asked us to submit a list of all our journalists," said Gugulethu Moyo, legal advisor to the Daily News, Zimbabwe's only independent newspaper and a fierce critic of the government of President Robert Mugabe.
Police said they would charge the journalists for violating the country's media laws by working without accreditation.
Five of the paper's nine directors were charged on Monday with publishing a paper without a licence as required under a strict media law passed last year.
Shortly after his re-election in March last year, Mugabe signed into law the controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which stipulates that all newspapers and journalists must be registered with the state.
Stifle freedom of expression
Critics condemned the act as an attempt to stifle freedom of expression.
Charges against the Daily News publishers and its editorial staff arise from the publication of the Friday September 12 edition, a day after the paper was declared illegal by the Supreme Court because it had not registered.
Non-governmental organisations have described the Supreme Court ruling as a "death warrant" for the paper.
Police have since launched two raids on the paper's offices confiscating computers and other equipment.
Despite legal shuttling and a High Court ruling ordering the police to return the seized equipment and allow the paper to reopen, the Daily News has not appeared on news-stands for the past 11 days.
Attempts by the paper to register with the state-run commission were rejected.
Accreditation turned down
And most of the paper's journalists who had applied for accreditation last year were turned down on the grounds that their employer had not applied for an operating licence.
The maximum penalty faced by the paper's owners for operating without a licence is two years in jail or a fine of Z$300 000 dollars (about R2 000), or both.
In addition, the convicting court may declare any equipment or apparatus used in producing the paper forfeited to the state.
Journalists who operate without accreditation risk being barred from working for a period specified by the media commission or having their name deleted from the roll of journalists.
They can also be fined Z$50 000 dollars and the commission may even refer offending journalists for prosecution, under AIPPA.
On Tuesday the Daily News was preparing to file an application with the High Court seeking a review of the media commission decision to deny it an operating licence.
The paper is also planning to go back to the High Court to lodge a fresh challenge on the seizure of its equipment by the police on Monday.
Took it away again
Police had at the weekend returned the equipment they confiscated last week after the High Court ordered them to do so. But they returned to the Daily News offices on Monday, armed with a warrant and took the equipment away again.
Civic groups in the southern African country on Monday said they would seek alternative means of getting information to the public following the closure of the country's sole independent daily paper.
They also threatened to boycott state-run newspapers
- AFP