Group Accuses Mugabe of Press Freedom Violations

SW Radio Africa (London)

Lance Guma

3 May 2011

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said Robert Mugabe is among the seven worst ‘press freedom predators’ on the African continent.

In a statement released Tuesday to mark World Press Freedom Day the group also named leaders Yahya Jammeh (Gambia), Issaias Afeworki (Eritrea), Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Equatorial Guinea), Paul Kagamé (Rwanda), King Mswati III (Swaziland) and Somalia’s Islamist militias, Al-Shabaab and Hizb-Al-Islam.

Despite the formation of a coalition government in Zimbabwe, Reporters Without Borders, said because of Mugabe, “Zimbabwe’s privately-owned print media are constantly harassed and that the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) has a monopoly of radio and TV broadcasting.”

The group chronicled how Mugabe has stepped up the pressure on the media since his election defeat in 2008. “Editors were placed under electronic surveillance to check their loyalty to the party, while opposition activists were abducted and tried for “terrorist plots” in grotesque trials,” it said.

The MDC led by Prime Minister Tsvangirai released a statement marking World Press Freedom day and said the country’s media industry continues to face repressive laws hampering the flow of information. The party said broadcasting in particular was “crying out for unfettered liberalisation and an open platform.”

The party cited cases of how senior ZANU PF officials and their supporters are openly threatening journalists doing their work. Simon Khaya-Moyo, the Zanu PF national Chairperson, recently urged the country’s security forces to crush journalists who criticize them.

“In some countries if you criticise security forces you won’t last a day, you will be crushed, killed and destroyed. I warn journalists in the private media to stop this, because it won’t be tolerated and we will hunt them and kill them. You hear them talk about press freedom. What press freedom?” Khaya-Moyo told ZANU PF supporters in Umguza early this year.

The theme of this year’s World Press Freedom celebration is “21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers,” and the growing uptake in the use of mobile phones in Zimbabwe had provided increased hope for greater freedom and spread of information. But news of the consequences of compulsory sim card registration will not be welcomed.

According to the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ ) some 2 million mobile phone users have been disconnected for not registering their SIM cards by the February deadline. POTRAZ said the number of mobile users had declined by 18 percent since March.

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