Harare | Thursday
ZIMBABWE has suspended accreditation of BBC journalists seeking to cover events in the country, accusing them of unethical and unprofessional conduct, the state-run Herald newspaper reported on Thursday.
The daily quoted a letter from Information Minister Jonathan Moyo to the BBC’s bureau chief in neighbouring South Africa saying that the measure was taken in response to what he said was distortion and misrepresentation of facts in a BBC report on a speech by President Robert Mugabe to parliament on Tuesday.
Moyo said the television report by the BBC’s Rageh Omaar was at variance with what Mugabe said about the land issue, and was distorted to “give a false impression that there is no rule of law in Zimbabwe”.
In the letter to Milton Nkosi, the BBC bureau chief in Johannesburg, Moyo said his ministry “has suspended all accreditation of BBC correspondents in Zimbabwe pending agreement, if at all possible, on ethical and professional code of conduct.”
The letter stated: “Your reporter clearly used the words that the president ‘vowed to continue with the forcible acquisition’ (of land), yet these words were nowhere in the president’s speech.”
It added: “There is a world of difference between ‘forcible acquisition’ and ‘lawful acquisition'”.
Moyo said it was “apparent that, as happened many times before, the BBC approached the president’s speech with a preconceived view to distorting it.”
“The time has come for the BBC to follow and uphold in Zimbabwe the same professional and ethical standards it follows in Britain. That is the bottom line, nothing less, nothing more,” the letter said.
In February, Zimbabwe expelled Joseph Winter, a BBC resident correspondent in Harare, for allegedly “propagating lies”.
Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa alleged that Winter and Uruguayan journalist Mercedes Sayagues of the Mail & Guardian — both of whom were given 24 hours to leave the country — “were distorting what is happening in Zimbabwe by propagating lies to the international community.”
Another British journalist, David Blair of the British Daily Telegraph, left the country after two years following a refusal by government to renew his work permit, in what Moyo said was purely an administrative decision.
Grant Ferrett, another BBC reporter, left earlier this year at the end of his permit which he did not seek to renew.
Zimbabwe recently decided to enforce a new requirement that foreign journalists apply for accreditation one month in advance of travelling to the country.
The Daily Telegraph’s editor, Charles Moore, responded to the denial of Blair’s work permit by likening the Zimbabwe government to the regime of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
The British government and media have been vocal in their criticism of Mugabe over the land reform scheme and the occupation of white-owned farms and repression of the press and judiciary in the former British colony. – AFP
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