|
'No paper to report on us'
15/10/2003 19:30 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwean police seem to be even more brutal now that the independent Daily News is not publishing anymore, said a member of the country's opposition Movement for Democratic Change party.
The country's only private daily paper was shut down last month after being denied an operating licence.
Eddie Cross, the MDC's economic advisor, said leaders of the the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), who were arrested during a protest march last week, were assaulted until blood flowed.
Samuel Khumalo, one of the union leaders, was dragged by his dreadlocks for more than a kilometre to the Drill Hall police station in Bulawayo.
Khumalo, a member of the ZCTU and a city councilor, was arrested and later blindfolded and taken to an open field.
According to Cross, police said since Daily News was banned, there was no newspaper to report on what they were doing to union members.
"Union members are very brave and are ready to talk despite the police's threats," Cross wrote in an internet newsletter on the situation in Zimbabwe.
Appeal
Meanwhile, a Zimbabwe court is set to hear an appeal on Thursday by the Daily News, a lawyer said Wednesday.
Armed police forcibly shut down the Daily News and its sister paper the Daily News on Sunday on September 12 after the Supreme Court ruled that the papers were illegal because they were not registered with a government-appointed commission.
Subsequently, the paper's parent company Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) submitted an application but it was rejected.
The ANZ is seeking an order directing the commission to register it.
The appeal has been set down for a hearing on Thursday, said ANZ legal adviser Gugulethu Moyo.
The paper was pronounced illegal when it went to the Supreme Court arguing that the media law was unconstitutional.
Moyo, while still challenging the constitutionality of the media law, is hopeful of a favourable ruling on Thursday.
"Our hope is that tomorrow's decision will result in ANZ being licensed to operate so that we can resume publication as soon as possible," she said.
"However, registration is not an end in itself for us. We still maintain that this law has to be whittled down by the Supreme Court, it is too far-reaching to be justifiable in a democratic society," she said.
The ANZ argues that the decision not to register it was politically motivated, and that the head of the commission "is hostile and biased" against it.
The paper will further argue that the commission was not properly constituted to give fair and proper consideration to its application.
The media law also bars foreign journalists from operating in Zimbabwe on a long-term basis. - Media24 Africa News/Sapa-AFP
- News24
|
