STELLA MAPENZAUSWA and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday
ZIMBABWE state telecommunications officials have outlawed an independent radio station and confiscated its broadcasting equipment after President Robert Mugabe’s government bulldozed hasty new regulations into law.
Officials from the Post and Telecommunications Corporation dismantled antennae and other equipment from Capitol Radio’s studio at a central Harare hotel after police raided the premises this week.
The station’s lawyers said the action had violated a High Court ruling that ordered the police and national intelligence agents to vacate the premises.
Zimbabwe’s Information and Publicity Minister Jonathan Moyo said the station’s operations were illegal under the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) (Broadcasting) Regulations 2000, which were passed into law on Thursday, and compromised national security.
The regulations stipulate that those seeking to offer broadcasting services in Zimbabwe should first obtain a licence from the information and publicity minister.
Last month Capitol Radio won a Supreme Court order overturning the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s monopoly over radio and television services after being barred from setting up a radio station. The station has been transmitting within Harare since last week.
The government argues that despite the Supreme Court ruling, it is illegal for private players to start broadcasting before it puts a new regulatory framework in place.
”We don’t believe you will find a reasonable court anywhere in the world which will say that it is OK for an individual or a group of individuals to allocate themselves a frequency and start broadcasting whatever they want, or however they want it,” Moyo said.
He lashed out at British High Commissioner Peter Longworth and officials at the commission, whom he said had tried to interfere with operations of the police at the studio, in some instances issuing threats to senior police officers.
British High Commission officials were not immediately available for comment.
Political analysts say Mugabe’s government, in power since the former colony of Rhodesia gained independence in 1980, has used its monopoly of state radio and television to its political advantage. – Reuters