imbabwe’s main opposition party on Saturday condemned the forced shutdown of the country’s only independent daily and called on readers to boycott all state-run newspapers.
”The move reaffirms the anti-democratic and dictatorial
instincts of the Mugabe regime and provides further evidence of the regime’s disregard for human rights and the rule of law,” Paul Themba Nyathi, spokesperosn for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said in a statement.
Late on Friday, riot police raided the offices of the Daily News — Zimbabwe’s biggest-selling newspaper — and shut down production.
The move came a day after the Supreme Court ruled the paper was operating illegally because it had not registered with a government media commission.
It was not clear on Saturday how long the paper would be off the streets.
”The Daily News has played a crucial role in keeping the flickering flame of democracy alive in Zimbabwe,” Nyathi said.
”We call upon all Zimbabweans to defend their freedoms of expression and information by starting a consumer boycott of all state newspapers,” he added.
Lawyers for the newspaper were meeting government officials yesterday to see if the paper could resume publication, but many in Zimbabwe feared that Mugabe’s government would keep the newspaper closed.
Police cordoned off the newspaper’s offices and permitted employees only to go in to clear out their desks. Bill Saidi, editor of the Daily News on Sunday, said he was unable to prepare the newspaper for publication.
”This is part of a well established pattern of doing everything to shut down the independent press, to shut us up,” said Saidi. ”It’s a terrible blow to freedom of the press.”
Since it began publishing in 1999 the Daily News has been a thorn in the side of the Mugabe government, exposing corruption, human rights abuses and the breakdown of the rule of law. As a result it has become the country’s most popular paper.
It has survived two bombings, including one that destroyed its printing press two years ago. Its editors and reporters have been arrested and beaten by Mugabe’s militia who also prevent distribution of the paper.
The closure of the Daily News came after the newspaper lost a court battle in which it challenged the constitutionality of the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
The paper had refused to register under the law, which requires it to give detailed financial information. But the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the paper must first register before it could question the law.
Gugulethu Moyo, a lawyer for the Associated Newspapers group which owns the Daily News , derided the ruling, saying ”the practical effect of this judgement is that had we been challenging the death penalty and not media laws we would have had to hang first and challenge the penalty from hell,” she said.
She added that the paper had indicated it would register so there was no need for the government to shut it down.
Legal experts said they feared the government would use clauses in the press law to allow it to seize all assets of the paper.
”This is a crude attempt to silence an inconvenient voice,” said Iden Wetherell, chairperson of the Zimbabwe National Editors’ Forum.
”No amount of heavy-handed repression by a desperately insecure government will disguise the trail of criminal misrule which the Daily News, together with other independent newspapers has done so much to expose.”
The government has renewed its campaign against the press after the setbacks of losing local council elections and the deteriorating economic situation which has seen inflation shoot up to 400%, said Wetherell, who is editor of the weekly Zimbabwe Independent. He said the government is lashing out at papers that print the news.
He added: ”The international community, and specifically the Commonwealth, must know that Mugabe is smothering the independent press.
”South African President Thabo Mbeki and Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano have assured the international community that repressive legislation in Zimbabwe will be revoked… Instead we see an intensification of repression with these attempts to silence the independent media and other critical voices.”
The last time a newspaper was banned was nearly 40 years ago when the white minority Rhodesian government outlawed an African nationalist newspaper, also called the Daily News. – Guardian Unlimited Â