The Zimbabwean government has banned e.tv from covering next Saturday’s general elections, state media said on Sunday.
The Sunday Mail said that e.tv, South Africa’s only commercial terrestrial station, had not been accredited for the joint parliamentary and presidential polls as it had previously breached media and security laws in a report on diamond smuggling last year.
The station’s Zimbabwe-born reporter was fined by a court at the time for operating without authorisation.
However, the government has cleared the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to cover the elections.
Meanwhile, secretary for information George Charamba said the government was considering requests by international news organisations to beef up staff numbers ahead of the elections.
”The committee also took a sympathetic view to requests for more support staff by international news organisations already accredited to Zimbabwe,” Charamba told the paper.
”It is emphasised that such support staff would have to come under bureau chiefs of those organisations who will be held fully accountable for the conduct of any such news personnel,” he added.
Last week, Charamba said the Southern African country would closely screen foreign media intending to cover the elections amid suspicions that uninvited observers and security personnel might impersonate Western reporters.
International news organisations already working in Zimbabwe include Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press, Reuters and al-Jazeera.
Following the passing of the media law in 2002, several foreign correspondents have been thrown out of the country and journalists from the independent press arrested and detained.
A jail sentence of up to two years is imposed on any journalist operating in Zimbabwe without accreditation. — Sapa-AFP