Trevor Ncube, owner and publisher of the Mail & Guardian, is effectively under country arrest in Zimbabwe after his passport was confiscated upon his arrival in Bulawayo last week, said the board of M&G Media, which publishes the M&G, on Tuesday.
In a statement, chairperson of the board Professor William Makgoba said the board is shocked at the confiscation of Ncube’s passport — apparently as a result of recent constitutional amendments in the country allowing the limiting of Zimbabwean citizenship against those the government deems harmful to the interests of the country.
”We call on the government of Zimbabwe to urgently return Mr Ncube’s passport to ensure that his freedom of movement is returned to him. We have no doubt that Mr Ncube is being punished for shining the light of truth on the rights abuses in Zimbabwe, a country which he loves and of which he is a son,” said Makgoba.
Ncube was one of 60 people named on a list compiled by the Zimbabwean government to have their travel documents confiscated if they were to travel back to their homeland.
He appeared to be the first person to have his travel documents taken away from him under the new laws.
Ncube publishes the Zimbabwe Independent, the Standard and the M&G — ”all newspapers which continue to write about the plights and rights abuse in these trying times”.
The confiscation of Ncube’s passport is yet another step backward in Zimbabwe’s decline, said Makgoba.
”It marks another sad day for Africa,” he said, ”and a step back for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the continental programme aimed at lifting our continent high.”
Ncube, who commutes between South Africa and Zimbabwe, is in Bulawayo on a business and family trip. As he landed on Wednesday last week, he was cleared through customs but then recalled from the car park, ostensibly to have a spelling discrepancy checked.
The customs official, who had a list of passport numbers with him, made a call to a senior official and said: ”It’s him” — an action that suggests that there is a renewed crackdown on Zimbabweans who live outside the country.
”I was informed that the instruction to confiscate my passport came from the President’s [Robert Mugabe’s] office, meaning the Central Intelligence Organisation,” Ncube said on Friday.
Ncube was last week also erroneously placed on the Australian government’s list of Zimbabweans who are under sanction, though he is in negotiations to have his name removed from the sanctions list.
”I’m obviously shocked at both actions,” he told the M&G Online from Zimbabwe. ”I’m barred from Australia and now I’m barred from leaving Zimbabwe.”
Lawyers for Ncube filed an urgent application in the Zimbabwe High Court on Monday against that country’s relevant authorities to explain why his passport was confiscated.
”I don’t see why they would not want to give me back my passport,” Ncube said on Monday morning. ”I have a very good chance.”
Staff at the M&G in Johannesburg are planning to picket the Zimbabwe high commission in Pretoria on Thursday morning.