Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was in good health and was chairing a Cabinet meeting in Harare on Tuesday morning, according to that country’s high commissioner to South Africa, Simon Moyo.
Media reports that the president was admitted to a South African hospital for medical treatment was nothing but ”wishful thinking”, he told Sapa in Pretoria.
”He (Mugabe) is chairing a Cabinet meeting as we speak,” Moyo said. ”There is nothing wrong with his health.”
Asked where he got this information from, the high commissioner said: ”I am his representative here. I am in touch with home every minute”.
Media reports have quoted sources as saying Mugabe was receiving medical treatment in a South African hospital after apparently suffering either a stroke or a bad fall.
Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said the South African government was not aware of the reported developments.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwean police on Monday charged four directors of The Daily News, an independent newspaper critical of President Robert Mugabe’s government, for publishing without a licence, the paper’s legal adviser said.
The charges came after police arrested and similarly charged Washington Sansole, one of the paper’s directors in the second city of Bulawayo on Sunday. He was released on Monday following an order obtained from a high court judge.
However the four Harare-based directors were due to spend Monday night in police cells after being charged. ”They’ve been locked up,” said Gugulethu Moyo, the newspaper’s legal adviser.
She said an urgent application filed in the Harare High Court on Monday to secure their release would only be considered on Tuesday.
The charges against the four — who include the paper’s publisher Samuel Nkomo — follow the return to the news-stands on Saturday of The Daily News, six weeks after it was shut down by the authorities.
Copies of The Daily News 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.
The comeback edition came a day after a court ruled that a state-appointed media commission had been wrong not to give the paper a licence when it applied for one in September.
It ordered the paper to be licensed by November 30. The paper’s employees and supporters greeted the court ruling as a victory.
Daily News publisher Nkomo claimed via cellphone from the police station Monday that the police action against him and his fellow directors was ”a travesty of justice”.
”It means you can’t get a victory in the courts and enjoy the fruits,” he said.
The police insist that the newspaper cannot publish until it actually has a certificate.
But the paper’s South Africa-based chairman, Strive Masiyiwa accused the police of being in contempt of Friday’s court ruling.
In a statement received by AFP he said the paper would ”pursue legal action against the Zimbabwe police for contempt of court”.
The arrest of The Daily News representatives was ”irrefutable proof the Zimbabwe government does not want an independent newspaper in the country,” he added.
The paper, the country’s only independent daily, initially refused to apply for a licence under a press law, passed last year, saying it was unconstitutional.
The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) compels all publications and journalists to be licensed.
In September the Supreme Court ruled that the Daily News was operating illegally and should register.
In a move that provoked an outcry here and abroad, armed police raided the paper’s offices in September and shut it down a day after the ruling.
If convicted under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Daily News directors could each face a fine of 300 000 Zimbabwe dollars (US$365) or a two-year prison sentence.
The other three directors are Rachel Kupara, Michael Mattinson and Brian Mutsau.
The Daily News was founded four years ago as an alternative to its main rivals — the state-run Herald and Chronicle dailies, which toe the official line. – Sapa-AFP