(RSF/IFEX) – RSF is denouncing the Zimbabwean embassy in Paris’s refusal to grant a visa to one of the organisation’s representatives. “This refusal proves that the Zimbabwean authorities still have things to hide and will do anything to prevent us from learning more about what is happening in the country,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF is denouncing the Zimbabwean embassy in Paris’s refusal to grant a visa to one of the organisation’s representatives. “This refusal proves that the Zimbabwean authorities still have things to hide and will do anything to prevent us from learning more about what is happening in the country,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. “The government promised it would authorise foreign observers and journalists to enter the country. These are obviously lies designed to reassure the European Union,” he added.
On 29 January 2002, two representatives from the Zimbabwean embassy in Paris received RSF’s Africa Bureau chief and announced their refusal to grant him a visa. “Your articles are too critical and you have called for sanctions against our country,” the embassy employees explained. They added that they had received instructions from Harare to bar RSF journalists from entering Zimbabwe.
RSF wished to travel to Zimbabwe in late February in order to cover the country’s election campaign and assess the country’s press freedom situation. The organisation recalls that in 2001, Zimbabwe became one of the most repressive countries on the African continent in terms of information freedom. Twenty local journalists were questioned and three foreign press correspondents were expelled from the country. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is included on RSF’s list of international press freedom predators.
