A Zimbabwe court has cleared a journalist from the banned Daily News for working without accreditation in a test case likely to affect dozens of other journalists, the reporter said on Thursday.
Kelvin Jakachira had been charged under the country’s strict press laws of working for the Daily News in 2003 without a licence from the state-appointed Media and Information Commission.
He argued that he had applied for a licence — along with a number of other colleagues — but had never been given a response.
Harare magistrate Prisca Chigumba acquitted Jakachira on Wednesday.
”I was acquitted because the magistrate said the evidence given by Tafataona Mahoso, the chairman [of the MIC], was confused and unreliable,” said Jakachira.
Jakachira said he believed up to 45 local journalists could have faced similar charges.
The Daily News, once Zimbabwe’s best-selling daily and a fierce critic of the government, was closed by police in 2003 and has been unable to publish despite numerous court challenges against its closure.
Journalists working without accreditation in Zimbabwe can face up to two years in prison.
The head of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Ann Cooper said in a statement the organisation ”welcome[d] this important court decision”.
”The government should withdraw these spurious charges against all of the former Daily News journalists, repeal AIPPA (the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act) and allow the Daily News to reopen,” she said. – Sapa-DPA