Zimbabwe’s sole independent daily, closed by the government a week ago, was still off the newsstands on Friday as police failed to comply with a High Court order to allow the paper to resume operations, a newspaper official said.
High Court justice Yunus Omerjee ruled on Thursday that the Daily News, which was shut down after the Supreme Court ruled it was operating illegally, should be allowed to resume publishing, and equipment seized in police raids be returned.
But although the police briefly left the newspaper’s offices after the ruling and returned a few of the scores of computers they had seized, hours later they were back occupying the premises and turned away staff who had reported for work, said the paper’s chief executive Samuel Sipepa Nkomo.
Nkomo, who had been keen to get a paper out on Friday, said it had been impossible to do ”because the police have not complied with the order”.
The government, meanwhile, intends to lodge an appeal against the court order, but the paper’s lawyers said the state needed to seek ”leave from the judge who heard the matter and he considers the merits” of their appeal.
The Daily News was shut down last week by the authorities after the Supreme Court ruled that it was operating illegally as it was not registered with a government-appointed media commission.
Under the tough Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) all news organisations and journalists have to register with the Media and Information Commission (MIC).
But the Daily News refused to do so, arguing that mandatory registration was unconstitutional.
The Daily News has since applied to register with the commission, and under the AIPPA, a media house is allowed to continue operating while its application is being considered.
Gugulethu Moyo, legal advisor to the Daily News, said on Friday the police were in contempt of court since they had defied the court order.
”It will be difficult to approach the court because they will have dirty hands,” she said, mimicking a warning made early this week by an unnamed lawyer quoted in Monday’s edition of the state-controlled Herald, the Daily News’s main rival, as the outspoken independent tabloid applied to register.
”They are approaching the Media and Information Commission with dirty hands and it does not follow that they will be automatically registered,” said the lawyer quoted in the Herald.
Legal sources have predicted that the government might try to circumvent the High Court decision and turn down the Daily News application for registration.
Although it took several weeks for the media commission to process applications for media houses that sought registration last year, the Herald speculated that a decision on the Daily News’s application would be made on Friday.
The Daily News, founded four years ago, is the country’s most popular newspaper. It is fiercely critical of the government of President Robert Mugabe.
Its forced closure sparked outrage both in Zimbabwe and internationally.
The crackdown on the paper comes as the government is struggling with an economic collapse and international isolation. Official inflation topped 426% last month and poverty affects some 80% of the population.
Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in March 2002 following presidential elections won by Mugabe but widely viewed as fraudulent.
The European Union and the US imposed travel bans on President Mugabe and his close associates following the vote.
A dispute is currently raging between South Africa and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, with the latter advocating that Mugabe be barred from attending a Commonwealth summit meeting in Nigeria in December. – Sapa-AFP