(MISA/IFEX) – The editor-in-chief of the “Daily News”, Geoff Nyarota, assistant editor Bill Saidi and journalists John Gambanga and Sam Munyavi were released on 15 August 2001, after police dropped the charge of “publishing a false statement,” according to the Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA), Section 50 (2) (a), and substituted it with the […]
(MISA/IFEX) – The editor-in-chief of the “Daily News”, Geoff Nyarota, assistant editor Bill Saidi and journalists John Gambanga and Sam Munyavi were released on 15 August 2001, after police dropped the charge of “publishing a false statement,” according to the Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA), Section 50 (2) (a), and substituted it with the charge of “criminal defamation.”
The police had been advised by the arrested journalists’ lawyer, Lawrence Chibwe, that the section under which the journalists were charged was declared unconstitutional by the full bench of the Supreme Court in 2000. However, the police insisted that they had to get a clearance from their superiors in order to release the journalists.
Nyarota, who was arrested first, had to endure a whole day of interrogation. The editor-in-chief was visibly stressed and tired. In a move that appeared aimed at punishing the journalists, the police deliberately took their time preparing the paperwork, refusing to use carbon paper to speed up the process. Their old manual typewriters also broke down from time to time. “We have all [the] time we want,” said one of the officers when asked by Saidi why he was not using the carbon paper.
Chibwe said that the police had dropped the initial charge upon realising that it was inappropriate. “Upon realising that the earlier charge, which they had preferred against my clients, was manifestly incompetent, I was informed that the charge had been changed to that of ‘criminal defamation.’ From what I have ascertained, they are saying it is an alternative charge,” said Chibwe.
He also said that the charge was improper because an institution cannot be defamed. “Again, this charge is not proper because an institution cannot be defamed, but they have already been charged and we will argue our case in court,” said Chibwe.
In a related move, police in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, arrested and later released Mduduzi Mathuthu, a “Daily News” reporter based in that city, on charges of breaching the LOMA, Section 50 (2) (a), for publishing what they termed a false statement. On 13 August, Mathuthu wrote a story in which he reported that people walked out on Vice President Joseph Msika when he asked them to chant political slogans during the National Heroes Day commemorations in Bulawayo.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has condemned the journalists’ arrest. COSATU said in a statement that the arrests reflected President Robert Mugabe’s total lack of respect for human rights and the rule of law. “The harassment of media workers, which has been going on for a long time now, cannot be tolerated and must be halted now,” said COSATU.
