Zimbabwe immigration officials on Friday ordered US journalist Andrew Meldrum to leave the southern African country, where he has been based for 23 years.
No official reason was given for the deportation, although Meldrum, who reports for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, told reporters he had been declared a ”prohibited immigrant”.
”I have been declared a prohibited immigrant. I am being deported,” he told reporters outside government immigration offices in Harare.
He was manhandled by police as he shouted: ”This is not the action of a government confident of its own legitimacy.”
Police officers and immigration officials then bundled the 51-year-old reporter into a waiting car and drove away.
”They said they’re taking him to the airport,” said Meldrum’s lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa. She said she was applying for an urgent High Court order to bar the deportation.
Meldrum was at the airport later on Friday morning. It was not clear if he had been booked onto a flight out of the country.
Last week immigration officials here said they wanted to speak to Meldrum. On May 7, five officials visited Meldrum’s house in the capital, but he was not at home. They did not give a reason for their unannounced visit.
Meldrum went into hiding and his lawyer accused immigration officials of wanting to deport the foreign correspondent.
Earlier this week Meldrum reported to immigration officials in the company of his lawyer. He was ordered to hand over his passport and his residence permit.
He said the Zimbabwean authorities had accused him of writing ”bad things about Zimbabwe”, charges he denied.
He was arrested last year and charged with publishing falsehoods after a story he wrote about political violence turned out to be incorrect. However, a court later acquitted him.
He was served with a deportation order immediately after his acquittal, but the High Court granted him leave to stay in the country until he could challenge that earlier deportation order in the Supreme Court.
Last week the Supreme Court ruled that a clause in Zimbabwe’s stringent press law that criminalises the publishing of falsehoods was unconstitutional.
The law, called the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) was signed by President Robert Mugabe shortly after his disputed victory in presidential elections last year. Legal experts and media watchdogs have condemned the law as
unjust and a breach of the right to free expression, guaranteed under Zimbabwe’s constitution. Meldrum is himself a vocal critic of the law.
The controversial legislation is due to be amended, but critics say it still contains clauses that are against freedom of expression.
At least five foreign correspondents have been forced to leave Zimbabwe since 2001. Meldrum is one of very few non-Zimbabwean foreign correspondents still working in the country. – Sapa-AFP