HARARE Local media watchdogs and other stakeholders roundly condemned the governments defiance of a Harare High Court order allowing four freelance journalists to cover the just ended COMESA summit, a move they said showed that hardliner elements in the power-sharing government were determined to keeping the media under shackles.(Pictured: GeorgeHigh Court Judge Bharat Patel ruled on June 5, 2009 in an urgent chamber application brought by four freelance journalists that the Media and Information Commission (MIC) no longer existed and therefore had no jurisdiction over registration of journalists, following amendments to the draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).
However, state security agents chased away the four journalists as they prepared to register with the COMESA secretariat, in a clear defiance of the court order.
Media Institute of Southern African Zimbabwe chapter chairperson Loughty Dube said the refusal to register the freelance journalists to cover COMESA despite brandishing Justice Patels High Court order was an affront to media freedom.
This places serious doubt on the governments commitment to media law reforms and also demonstrates ominous failure to uphold the rule of law, said Dube.
Not on list
According to the four journalists Stanley Gama, Valentine Maponga, Stanley Kwenda and Jealous Mawarire they were barred from entering the venue of the summit because they were not on the Ministry of Informations list of journalists accredited to cover the summit despite the existence of the court order shown to them.
MISA-Zimbabwe urges the inclusive government and especially the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity, to take serious note of this blatant breach and contempt of independent decisions made by the courts in violation of the principle respecting the independence and separation of the powers of the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature, said Dube.
He added that MISA-Zimbabwe was of the strong view that this was an urgent matter that the inclusive governments Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) should be investigating to establish under what authority the information ministry chose to defy a court order.
They said hardliner elements in the ministry behind the move to defy the High Court order should be exposed and publicly condemned to restore public confidence in the Executives respect and adherence to decisions of the courts.
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) director Ernest Mudzengi, who is also a media lecturer at the Zimbabwe Open University, said the barring of the journalists was a pointer that proposed media reforms under the inclusive government were a faade.
Harassment continues
How do you explain it when journalists are being denied coverage of an international summit? Let us forget about the promised media reforms. Its all a fallacy. Journalists continue to be harassed and persecuted, said Mudzengi, in reference to the arrest last week of two journalists from The Worker newspaper, the official mouthpiece of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
Last month the editor of the Zimbabwe Independent Vincent Kahiya and his News Editor Constantine Chimakure, were hauled before the courts for allegedly publishing a story naming and shaming state security agents responsible for the abduction and torture of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists.
The MDC activists, including the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), Jestina Mukoko, are facing charges ranging from terrorism and banditry.
Irene Petras, the national executive director of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), whose organisation is assisting the four journalists in their legal battle with the government, said: Actions of the state security agents are anti-media freedom. We are preparing papers to sue all the people involved in the defiance of the high court order. This is unacceptable.
Growing concern
The Zimbabwe Youth Forum added its voice to the growing concern over the barring of the journalists from the summit.
We condemn the denial of access of these journalists to the just ended COMESA Summit in Victoria Falls which was generally described as a gathering of dictators and criminals, it said in a statement.
Al-Beshir, the President of Sudan under an International Criminal Court warrant of arrest, shrugged off security concerns and attended the summit.
As Youth Forum we urge the state media to be more informative and educative rather than being a mere propaganda conveyer belt of ZANU PF and the government. We are shocked by the continued bias of the state media and hate speech, contrary to the dictates
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