Media freedom is likely to come under increasing attack in Zimbabwe in the new year Chris McGreal This article will be punishable by up to two years in prison under the new media Bill likely to become law in Zimbabwe early next year. For a start, it quotes The Herald newspaper in Harare a government propagandist rag with little regard for the truth or its plummeting circulation for the want of a response from Zimbabwe’s Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo about the coming legislation. But that in itself falls foul of Part XII, Section 89 of the new legislation under the heading: Abuse of Journalistic Privilege.”A journalist shall be deemed to have abused his journalistic privilege and committed an offence if he does the following: rewrites a story that has already been published by another mass media service without the permission of that mass media owner.” Well, The Herald was first with the story, as it breaks all news planted by the government. It revealed that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe plans to curb his last truly vigorous domestic critics the press by having Moyo decide who can work as a journalist and which newspapers may be published. In addition, it will be a crime to criticise the president or”spread alarm and despondency”. All in the name of freedom of the press, of course. With Stalinist intent, the executioner also intends to make the victim pay for the bullet. Any media house local or foreign represented in Zimbabwe will be obliged to pay contributions to a”media and information fund” for the country’s notoriously erratic Moyo to use as he pleases. The size of the contributions has yet to be determined, but that is also the minister’s prerogative. Mugabe may come to regret this. Moyo is wanted in Kenya and South Africa for alleged fraud. Basildon Peta, chairperson of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, says the law is aimed at one thing shutting down a critical press ahead of what is expected to be a violent and extensively rigged presidential election in March or April. “I can’t believe its contents. It’s obscene. It’s unacceptable. The only reason behind the Bill is that it empowers the minister of information to determine who practises journalism in this country and who doesn’t, and it’s targeted at those he doesn’t want to practise journalism. They want to weed out journalists they don’t like,” he said. “It won’t surprise me if newspapers are closed down. They bombed The Daily News and failed to shut it down. So now they are using the law.” Mugabe’s government has tried, and failed, to silence the independent press with terror. Journalists have been arrested and tortured by the police with beatings and electric shocks. The Daily News had its presses blown up. But it could not stop the revelations of the government’s responsibility for violence, its contempt for the law and the extent of the economic crisis Zimbabwe now faces. Moyo has also been riled by the foreign press, particularly the BBC and British newspapers. Foreign reporters are now virtually barred from the country. Last month The Herald at Moyo’s behest accused six journalists working for foreign newspapers of being de facto terrorists. They included The Guardian’s reporter in Harare, Andrew Meldrum. Zimbabwe’s media monitoring project said the accusations were aimed at marking journalists as targets for attack.”It is a very short step from labelling someone a terrorist to licensing your supporters to commit violence against them.” But the intimidation hasn’t worked, so the government intends to use a law that is almost certainly unconstitutional. The legislation sets up a commission appointed by the government that will license journalists according to”standards” laid down by Moyo. These are believed to include a requirement for reporters to have journalism degrees.”Moyo knows very well that we don’t have journalism degrees, and we don’t need them,” said Peta. The law prescribes up to two years in prison for a host of offences, including working as a journalist without a licence, exciting disaffection against the president and spreading rumours, falsehoods or causing alarm and despondency. Publications that breach these requirements can have their assets seized. In the absence of government comment, we have to turn to Moyo’s own mouthpiece, The Herald, for an insight into its justification for the Bill. “In recommending the Bill, the Department of Information and Publicity said the media should be accountable to society and had to be judged on how well they were conveying messages without distortions or interfering with the right to freedom of expression given to people in the Constitution,” the paper said. In the future it will be illegal to repeat what The Herald had to say without its permission. Here’s how the paper justifies it.”Journalists who have been surviving from plagiarising stories from The Herald and other newspapers to file stories on Zimbabwe in foreign newspapers will face criminal charges,” the paper said.”The proposed law has created a furore among foreign journalists who have been distorting stories on Zimbabwe with a view to mobilising the international community against the country.” It is far more likely that The Herald’s own reporting brings ridicule and scorn on the government, which it would rather were not broadcast around the globe. Peta who works for the Financial Gazette in Harare and also files for Tony O’Reilly’s Independent group does not expect that he or most other journalists critical of the government will be licensed. “Let’s go by what the minister has said. When he called us terrorists, he also said that our days as journalists in this country are numbered,” he said.
“What we say as the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists is that we should not even apply for those certificates, we shall boycott them. Then he will arrest us all and imprison us and we shall appeal to the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. It will get the case to the court quicker.”