Two Zimbabwean journalists have been charged with defamation over a story on a health insurance company linked to a senior central bank official, state media said on Thursday.
The Standard weekly newspaper editor Nevanji Madanhire and reporter Nqaba Matshazi were each granted $100 bail by the magistrate’s court, the Herald said.
They were charged with criminal defamation and theft over a story about the Green Card Medical Society, owned by a key adviser to central bank chief Gideon Gono, it said.
“The two were arrested after being accused of possessing stolen data and publishing a defamatory story over Green Card Medical Society,” the Herald said, without saying when the two journalists were arrested.
The court ordered the two journalists to surrender their passports, the paper said.
Green Card is owned by Munyaradzi Kereke, an adviser to Gono.
Four local journalists, including one from the Standard, were arrested in July for taking pictures during the eviction of a police officer accused of sympathising with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party.
The four were released without charge.
Media in Zimbabwe have operated under strict rules for the last decade, with several newspapers forced to shut down while local journalists and foreign correspondents have been deported and harassed by police.
Tsvangirai has vowed to abolish the country’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which bans foreign journalists from working permanently in the country.
Under the unity government formed between Tsvangirai and Mugabe in 2009, new newspaper licences have been issued, allowing the once-banned Daily News to return to publication. — AFP