Zimbabwe’s popular independent Daily News — a fierce critic of the government — hit the stands for a second day on Friday, four months after being forcibly shut down by authorities who have renewed moves to gag it again.
The tabloid’s size doubled from eight pages on Thursday to 16 on Friday but the print run remained at 100Â 000. Like the previous day, the daily was snapped up by curious readers.
The lead story on Friday was South African President Thabo Mbeki’s announcement that formal talks between the ruling party of Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe and his arch-foe Morgan Tsvangirai from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would be held soon.
It also carried an editorial on the rule of law, which commended a court ruling allowing the paper to resume publishing while expressing concern that the state and the police had gone out of their way to shut down the paper.
The tabloid was Zimbabwe’s best-selling daily with a readership of 900Â 000 prior to its forced closure by the authorities last September because it had failed to register with a state-appointed media commission set up by Mugabe after he was re-elected in controversial polls in March 2002.
The paper had battled since then to get permission to resume publishing and police have occupied the premises. Five court rulings have been issued in favour of the paper.
The latest uninterrupted occupation of the paper’s printing works by the police started on December 19 until Wednesday, when the High Court in Harare again ordered the police out, the third such order issued in just over a month.
But the government late on Thursday filed urgent applications in the High Court seeking to stop the paper from continuing to publish, according to the paper’s legal adviser. The application is due to be heard on Friday.
Gugulethu Moyo said the media commission, which is responsible for licensing journalists and their papers, filed “an urgent interdict … to stop our operations”.
In addition, she said Information Minister Jonathan Moyo had filed a separate application in the High Court to have the Daily News and its sister Sunday paper declared illegal.
“The main basis of his argument is that the ANZ [parent company Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe] is using unaccredited journalists,” she said.
The government has accused the paper of being a mouthpiece of the opposition MDC. — Sapa-AFP
Zim govt seeks to gag Daily News