The Daily News, Zimbabwe’s independent newspaper that was banned by President Robert Mugabe’s government late last month, on Thursday continued in its battle in the country’s courts to be allowed to resume publishing.
The Administrative Court, a lesser division of the country’s High Court, is due to rule later in the day on an appeal by the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), the owners of the newspaper, against the banning order.
The state-controlled media commission refused to grant the ANZ a licence to publish the paper on September 19, after a week in which its offices were illegally occupied by heavily armed paramilitary police who seized its equipment and evicted staff.
In the past week, five ANZ directors and 16 Daily News journalists have been charged with ”publishing an illegal newspaper”.
ANZ lawyer Gugulethu Moyo confirmed on Thursday that High Court Judge Tendai Uchena, recently appointed by Mugabe, refused another application on Wednesday by the ANZ to have its equipment — mostly computers and software — returned.
Uchena gave no reasons for the refusal.
Meanwhile lawyers confirmed on Thursday that another judge had dismissed an application by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to bar two senior government electoral officials from giving evidence in his challenge to Mugabe’s controversial victory in presidential elections in March last year.
The two officials had been ordered to produce volumes of documents on the running of the elections, but had handed in only a page each.
International election observers have said Mugabe won through fraud and violent intimidation.
Bryant Elliot, Tsvangirai’s lawyer, said it had taken Judge Susan Mavangira six months to deliver her ruling in what had been an ”urgent application”.
”It should have taken at most three days,” Elliot said. ”We’ve been writing to her for ages, and got no response, until now.” — Sapa