(MISA/IFEX) – On Saturday 3 November 2001, Zimbabwean Minister of State for Information and Publicity Jonathan Moyo ordered the ejection of Mduduzi Mathuthu, a reporter with “The Daily News”, from a meeting in Bulawayo after a heated argument erupted over allegations made by the minister. Moyo, who was addressing journalists at the Bulawayo Press Club, […]
(MISA/IFEX) – On Saturday 3 November 2001, Zimbabwean Minister of State for Information and Publicity Jonathan Moyo ordered the ejection of Mduduzi Mathuthu, a reporter with “The Daily News”, from a meeting in Bulawayo after a heated argument erupted over allegations made by the minister.
Moyo, who was addressing journalists at the Bulawayo Press Club, ordered his security guards to eject Mathuthu from the meeting after the journalist questioned the minister on the truthfulness of some of his allegations.
Speaking to MISA-Zimbabwe, Mathuthu said that he questioned the minister over his allegations that David Coltart, an opposition member of parliament and legal practitioner, was a murderer and a racist who is fighting for “the white man’s interests” in Zimbabwe. Mathuthu reminded Moyo that Coltart had represented former minister of home affairs and senior ruling party official Dumiso Dabengwa and the late Sydney Malunga when they were being persecuted by the Mugabe-led government in the 1980s, as post-independence ethnic disturbances gripped Zimbabwe. Mathuthu claims that he wanted to show Moyo the contradiction in his allegations, since Coltart represented people who are now in the leadership of the ruling party, to which Moyo belongs. Mathuthu said that it was at this time that the minister ordered that he be ejected from the meeting.
In a related story broadcast on 5 November by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), Moyo said that the government would take action against media houses that demonise the ruling party and the government.
He cited a number of cases in which the government is suing media houses that allegedly carried false stories. Commenting on Mathuthu’s ejection, the ZBC claimed that he was ejected after making rude remarks. Moyo is suing Mathuthu for defamation after he wrote a story alleging that millions of dollars in cheques that Moyo had given to people in Matebeleland in the run up to the mayoral elections had bounced.
The ruling party lost the election by a wide margin. “The Daily News”, however, apologised and retracted the story after failing to substantiate it with documents. Moyo said that the story is a clear example of bad journalism that the government is determined to uproot.
At the same meeting, Moyo promised journalists that the Freedom of Information and Publicity Bill would be brought to parliament by early January 2002.
