Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s government on Thursday dismissed a resolution by the World Association of Newspapers (Wan) condemning press violations in Zimbabwe and calling for an end to the arrests and detentions of reporters.
”This is a bogus resolution by a bogus organisation,” Mugabe spokesperson George Charamba said in comments carried by the official Herald newspaper.
”We give absolutely no regard to that report and dismiss it with the contempt it deserves,” said Charamba, who is also the permanent secretary in the Information Ministry.
The Wan board this week accused Mugabe’s government of violating journalists’ rights by detaining them, assaulting them and stripping them of licences required to work.
The Wan board called on Mugabe to put an end to the arbitrary and violent arrest and detention of journalists, and to firmly commit to uphold international standards of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, part of the statement read.
Paris-based Wan represents 18 000 publications across five continents.
The call comes barely a month after the International Press Institute noted that Zimbabwe is probably the most difficult place in the world to work as a journalist.
The government has launched a renewed clampdown on independent journalists in recent months.
In April Gift Phiri, Harare correspondent of a London-based Zimbabwean newspaper, was arrested and tortured by police over two stories he wrote last year.
Earlier, in March, a local photojournalist and his colleague were arrested and severely assaulted by police while trying to cover a thwarted opposition rally.
Several days later, veteran television journalist Edward Chikombo was abducted by suspected state agents from his Harare home and later found dead outside the capital.
Tafataona Mahoso, chairperson of the state-appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC) in charge of licensing journalists, suggested the slain cameraman was in fact a spy.
He said the former state journalist, who is reported to have filmed footage of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after his torture by police, did not appear on the MICs list of accredited journalists.
”So if he was doing media work he was doing so as a spy using media equipment, which may explain his case,” Mahoso told the Herald. ”If he was abducted and murdered by somebody, it had nothing to do with journalism.”
The MIC, which Mahoso has chaired since its inception in 2002, has forced four independent newspapers to close in the past five years, including the best-selling Daily News.
The commission has also consistently denied press cards to independent and foreign correspondents.
In its statement on Tuesday, Wan accused the MIC of working with Mugabe’s government to suppress press freedom and to asphyxiate the very last private media in Zimbabwe. — Sapa-dpa