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Daily News raided, again
19/12/2003 21:14 - (SA)
Harare - Hours after a Zimbabwe high court judge ruled that the independent Daily News be allowed to publish, the country's police raided the newspaper's premises.
"We had prepared a special eight-page edition for Saturday," said editor Nqobile Nyathi.
"Then riot police sealed off the printing works and told the staff to leave."
Judge Selo Nare, under threat of violence, ruled that the Daily News be allowed to publish again after being banned by authorities since September.
Within hours police had illegally raided the newspaper's premises, driven out journalists and technicians, and stopped them from producing the first edition of the newspaper since October when brief reprieve supplied by the courts allowed them to publish for a single day before being silence by authorities.
The newspaper was first banned in September when a state commission refused to issue it with a "licence" to publish.
Police then occupied the Daily News in the city centre and drove out journalists there.
"It's nothing but lawlessness," said Sam Nkomo, chief executive officer of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe that owns the Daily News.
Earlier on Friday, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said the court action was "clearly political and will be resisted by all available legal means in the interest of upholding the rule of law."
Lawyers attempted to make an urgent application to the high court in Harare for an interdict against authorities, but were frustrated by court officials who refused to allow any process until Tuesday, at the end of the long weekend, with Monday as a public holiday.
Lawyers say the police action is the latest in a saga of repeated violations of court orders as authorities, who admit acting on "orders from the top," trample on the country's laws to ensure the silence of the courageous tabloid that has provided Zimbabweans with detailed coverage of Mugabe's repressive rule since it was founded early in 1999.
Earlier on Friday Nare, head of the administrative court, a branch of the high court, ordered the government to obey a high court instruction made in October by another court in Harare which overturned a state banning order on the paper.
Nare said in his judgement that his decision to allow the newspaper to publish again applied "notwithstanding any appeal that might be lodged."
- SAPA
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