A Zimbabwean court has issued an arrest warrant for Zimbabwean independent journalist Geoffrey Nyarota for failing to appear in court on charges of abusing journalistic privileges, his lawyer said on Friday.
The award-winning former editor-in-chief of Zimbabwe’s leading independent daily newspaper the Daily News is currently at Harvard University receiving a fellowship award.
He is accused of abusing his journalistic privilege and of publishing falsehoods after a report appeared in the paper last April describing how a woman had allegedly been beheaded in front of her daughters by pro-government militias. The story later proved to be false and the Daily News retracted it.
Nyarota was supposed to have appeared in court for a remand hearing but his lawyer said it would have been very expensive for the newsman to fly all the way from the US to Harare for a remand hearing.
Chibwe said he would press for a date for the actual trial to start at the next hearing.
Nyarota was dismissed from his job last December after a strike by journalists at the paper over a pay dispute prevented the paper from being published for 11 days.
The former editor, who has won numerous local and international awards for journalism and press freedom, has been arrested on several occasions.
The country’s media law under which Nyrota has been charged has been criticised both at home and abroad as an attempt to muzzle the free press in Zimbabwe, which has been increasingly critical of President Robert Mugabe and alleged human rights abuses perpetrated by his supporters. – Sapa-AFP