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Daily News faces new obstacle
10/02/2004 11:22 - (SA)
Harare - Journalists employed by the Daily News, Zimbabwe's only critical daily voice, have been refused employment licenses by the country's press control authority, state-controlled media reported on Tuesday.
The state-controlled daily Herald quoted Tafataona Mahoso, chair of the Media and Information Commission, as saying that he would not register the Daily News's journalists because the newspaper itself was not registered with the commission.
Press laws passed in March 2002 demand that journalists and the media organisations they work for be licensed by the state-run commission.
In September last year the commission banned the Daily News but four subsequent court orders have rescinded the ban and ordered that the commission be dissolved because it is "biased" and "improperly constituted". Only after the fourth order, late last month, was the newspaper allowed to publish.
However, last week, in a separate legal issue, the supreme court dismissed an appeal to declare as unconstitutional the clauses in the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which made it a crime to work as a journalist without a licence from the commission.
Daily News reporters, who had held back from applying for licences until the appeal had been heard, immediately stopped working and handed in their applications on Friday. - Sapa-dpa
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