Trevor Ncube, CEO of the Mail & Guardian newspaper in Johannesburg, on Monday managed to successfully renew his Zimbabwean passport for another ten years.
Ncube, a Zimbabwean citizen and owner of that country’s last remaining independent newspapers, the Standard and the Zimbabwe Independent, was embroiled in court proceedings with the Zimbabwean government when it tried to revoke his citizenship, claiming that he was a Zambian citizen.
Earlier this year, the Zimbabwe High Court ruled in Ncube’s favour and the government subsequently abandoned its case against him.
On Monday, Ncube told the Mail & Guardian Online he was ”delighted and relieved that it’s finally over”.
Ncube said he was issued with a new passport that will expire in 2017.
He said he intends launching a public campaign in Zimbabwe to address similar ideas about citizenship and human rights. He said the issue is bigger than just his court battle with the state, and although it is finally over for him, ”it still remains an issue for the 1,5-million to two million [Zimbabweans] still affected”.
Ncube said he had not suffered pressure or harassment by the state since his arrival in Zimbabwe. He said he believed this was due to the court ruling and the merits of his case, not because of its high profile nature.
Passport battle
The Zimbabwean government ”abandoned” a court case against Ncube in January after it had prevented him at the end of last year from renewing his passport, claiming he was not a citizen of Zimbabwe.
The high court ruling made it clear that an estimated 1,5-million Zimbabweans whose parents were born outside Zimbabwe, and who live in fear of being denationalised, no longer have to face abuse from the Registrar General’s office.
”The attempt to use citizenship as a tool to fight perceived political enemies and to settle personal scores must be condemned in the strongest terms,” Ncube said.
The official pretext for rescinding Ncube’s citizenship was that his father was Zambian, but the move provoked worldwide condemnation as a clear government attempt to rein in Zimbabwe’s besieged independent media.
The high court ruled that Ncube was a citizen of Zimbabwe by birth, and that the withdrawal or cancellation of his citizenship by the respondents had been ”unlawful, null, void and of no force and effect”.
A loss of citizenship would have meant that Ncube could own only a 40% share in his newspapers, and control would have passed from him.
South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) chairperson Ferial Haffajee and Sanef media-freedom sub-committee convener Raymond Louw had said in a joint statement earlier in January that the action against Ncube was ”a serious inroad in what is left of media freedom in Zimbabwe and Ncube’s personal freedom”.
”This can only mean that [President Robert] Mugabe wants to close down the papers or to change their critical stance by forcing on them a new ownership structure more supportive of him,” the Sanef statement had said.
Relief
However, earlier this month, Zimbabwe’s Media and Information Commission issued publishing licences for the Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard, despite recent fears that the Mugabe government’s much-criticised crackdown on media freedom would also affect these newspapers.
”I am delighted to inform you that the commission … has issued two-year publishing licences for our two newspapers in Zimbabwe,” Ncube said. ”This is a huge relief.”
The Media and Information Commission stated in January that it would not close down the two newspapers even if Ncube had lost his Zimbabwean citizenship, state television reported.
The Zimbabwe Independent is a business weekly and the Standard is published on Sundays. Despite numerous arrests and threats of violence, the two newspapers have continued to expose corruption and human rights abuses.