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Zim to charge journos
23/09/2003 12:03 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe police were preparing on Tuesday to charge all journalists at the country's only private daily paper for working without accreditation, a day after the paper's owners were charged for not having an operating permit, police and company officials said.
The Daily News's legal advisor Gugulethu Moyo said police had requested a list of all the journalists employed by the paper, which was forcibly shut down 11 days ago for operating illegally.
"Police would like to question our journalists and have asked us to submit a list of all our journalists," Moyo told reporters.
Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed that the police would charge the journalists for operating without accreditation.
Without a licence
Five of the paper's nine directors were questioned on Monday and charged with publishing a paper without a licence as required under a strict media law passed last year in the southern African country.
The Daily News employs 45 journalists.
Under the same law, local journalists working for Zimbabwean-based media have to pay Z$5 000 (about R45) for accreditation, while those employed by foreign media pay US$1 000 (about R7 200) for an accreditation card.
Turned down
Moyo said most of the journalists had applied for accreditation with the state-appointed Media and Information Commission last year but were turned down on the grounds that their employer had not applied for an operating licence.
Under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), signed into law by President Robert Mugabe soon after his re-election last year, all media organisations and journalists must be registered with a state-appointed media commission.
The Daily News, a fierce critic of Mugabe's government, applied for a licence last week after the Supreme Court ruled that it could not hear its application challenging the constitutionality of AIPPA until it was registered.
But the application was rejected.
The paper is meanwhile preparing to file an application with the High Court seeking a review of the media commission decision to deny it a licence.
- AFP
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