The editor of a private Zimbabwean weekly newspaper received an envelope with a bullet and a stern warning after it published a cartoon lampooning poorly paid soldiers, a senior journalist said on Thursday.
”An envelope was delivered to our reception addressed to the editor of the Standard, containing a bullet, a cutting of the cartoon we published last Sunday and a note saying: ‘Dear Editor, what is this. Watch your step’,” Iden Wetherell, group projects editor of the Standard told a news conference.
”We take this threat very seriously indeed, coming as it does in the context of a new crackdown on the independent media and civil society.”
The Standard is one of the few remaining independent newspapers after authorities invoked strict media laws to shut down four papers, including a daily known for its anti-government stance.
The Zimbabwe government recently abandoned a court case against Trevor Ncube — publisher of the Standard and the Zimbabwe Independent in that country and the Mail & Guardian in South Africa — after it had prevented him at the end of last year from renewing his passport, claiming he was not a citizen of Zimbabwe.
Last Sunday, Standard it published a cartoon showing three baboons in stitches of laughter and a passer-by telling his colleague that the cause of their merriment was because they had picked up a soldier’s payslip and seen his salary.
Zimbabwe is in the grips of an economic recession marked by four-digit inflation and acute shortages of basic commodities. At least 80% of the population live below the poverty threshold.
Bill Saidi, editor of the Standard, said it was premature to finger anybody but added that the government was resorting to threats and physical attacks after realising the country’s strict media laws had failed to emasculate the remnants of the country’s once-vibrant independent press.
”They have seen that the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act has failed to silence the independent press as they had hoped it would do,” Saidi said.
”Now there is a new thrust of violence against the independent press. When someone sends a bullet to you, they are saying next time it will be aimed at you.”
Foster Dongozi, secretary general of the Southern African Journalists’ Association said: ”We are disturbed that such barbaric acts continue to take place in Zimbabwe at this time.”
Zimbabwe passed the Act in early 2002 and it has been invoked to expel foreign correspondents and to shut down four private newspapers. — Sapa-AFP