Zimbabwe police on Monday charged four more directors of The Daily News for publishing the country’s only independent daily without a licence, the paper’s legal adviser said.
Publisher Samuel Nkomo was also being charged with ”obstructing the course of justice”.
”They [police] claim the directors were in hiding over the weekend,” she said. On Sunday police arrested Washington Sansole, one of the paper’s directors, in Bulawayo.
The charges against the directors follow the publication on Saturday of a comeback edition of The Daily News, which is highly critical of the government, six weeks after it was shut down by the authorities.
Copies of the paper were snatched up by an enthusiastic public on Saturday morning. But police later shut down the paper’s city offices and briefly detained 18 staff members.
Police said they wanted to interview the directors of the paper for publishing without a licence a day after a court ordered the government to issue it a licence by November 30.
Under Zimbabwe’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, all publications and journalists must be licensed.
The paper initially refused to apply for a licence under the law, saying it was unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court ruled that it was operating illegally and should register.
The state-appointed media commission subsequently refused to register The Daily News.
But on Friday another court ordered the Media and Information Commission to license it by November 30.
If convicted the directors could each face a fine of Z$200 000 (R1 660) or a two-year prison sentence. — Sapa-AFP
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