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Zim journos 'must be brave'
03/05/2007 22:10 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe was one of the worst places in the world to work as a journalist, a prominent local editor said in an article published on World Press Freedom Day on Thursday.
Independent journalists have been under attack in Zimbabwe since repressive press laws were passed shortly after President Robert Mugabe's disputed re-election in 2002.
The laws have seen at least four newspapers closed down and the arrest of dozens of reporters.
Last month a former reporter from the state-run ZBC television was abducted and killed, allegedly for selling freelance photographs of battered opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
At least four local reporters were beaten and a British correspondent for Time magazine was arrested and held for several nights, after police discovered he had been working without a press card.
Act of bravery
"It is an act of enormous bravery, defiance and resilience to work as an independent journalist, in Zimbabwe today," Bornwell Chakaodza said in a column for the Financial Gazette.
Chakaodza is a former editor of the state-run Herald newspaper and also previously edited the private Standard newspaper.
"I dream of the day when we will no longer have words such as repressive media environment and draconian media laws on our lips," he said.
The Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ), an umbrella grouping of local reporters and media rights groups, said Zimbabwe had recently witnessed relentless attacks on the media.
"As other democratic countries commemorate World Press Freedom Day on May 3 by reflecting on the progressive steps they have taken to entrench media freedom and freedom of expression, Zimbabwe marks this day in the wake of relentless attacks on the media and citizens right to free speech," the alliance said in a statement.
A journalist from Botswana, Nomsa Ndlovu, claimed this week she had been detained and forced to put her fingers on wires connected to an electrical socket after border police accused her of sneaking into the country to report for international broadcasters BBC or CNN.
Writing in Botswana's Mmegi newspaper, Ndlovu claimed she had only crossed into Zimbabwe, where she herself was educated for 15 years, to pay school fees for an adopted son.
Under Zimbabwe's notorious Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) foreign reporters can only come into Zimbabwe with prior permission, which is rarely granted by the state media commission.
Local reporters also need government approval to work, but that has not been issued to many independent reporters this year.
We must have a free press, wrote Chakaodza. Without that Zimbabwe will remain incoherent, isolated, ostracised, bleeding and lost in the long grass. - Sapa-dpa
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