**Updates IFEX alerts of 29 January, 27 January, 25 January, 22 January, 21 January, 18 January, 15 January and 13 January 1999** (ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – The following is an ARTICLE 19 press release: 3 February 1999 – for immediate release ARTICLE 19 TO SUPPORT ZIMBABWE JOURNALISTS’ LEGAL BID ARTICLE 19 is to support a direct […]
**Updates IFEX alerts of 29 January, 27 January, 25 January, 22 January, 21
January, 18 January, 15 January and 13 January 1999**
(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – The following is an ARTICLE 19 press release:
3 February 1999 – for immediate release
ARTICLE 19 TO SUPPORT ZIMBABWE JOURNALISTS’ LEGAL BID
ARTICLE 19 is to support a direct appeal to the Zimbabwean Supreme Court on
behalf of the two Sunday Standard journalists who were arrested and tortured
last month. They now face charges of disseminating false news.
Lawyers for Mark Chavunduka and Roy Choto have decided to mount a direct
challenge to the colonial statute under which the journalists have been
charged – ‘publication of false news likely to cause fear, alarm or
despondency among the general public’ – on the grounds that it is contrary
to the guarantee of freedom of expression set out in the Zimbabwean
Constitution. ARTICLE 19 will provide information on international and
comparative law to support this challenge.
Andrew Puddephatt, the new Executive Director of ARTICLE 19, said today:
“If successful, this challenge will put an end to one way in which the
government attempts to gag its critics. Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court has often
been stout in its defence of the Constitution in the past, although the
government has sometimes simply amended the Constitution when it finds
itself on the wrong end of a Court decision.
“What causes ‘alarm and despondency’ among a population is knowing that the
government is prepared to violate human rights and torture its critics,” he
added.
The latest and most serious action by the authorities to intimidate the
independent press was the arrest and torture of the two Sunday Standard
journalists, in an attempt to force them to reveal their sources for a story
about a coup, and to deter future publication of stories on such matters.
Note:
A conviction for publishing false news carries a prison sentence of up to
seven years.Last year, ARTICLE 19 published Media Monopoly and Popular
Protest, a report which documented ways in which the Zimbabwe government’s
virtual monopoly of the mass media allows it to censor information about
growing popular opposition.
