In a letter to Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo, RSF protested the arrest of Wallace Chuma, news editor of the independent weekly “Zimbabwe Mirror”. RSF asked the minister to order the competent authorities to release the journalist immediately. “The press freedom situation is deplorable. Zimbabwe is no longer a country with the rule of law,” […]
In a letter to Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo, RSF protested the arrest of Wallace Chuma, news editor of the independent weekly “Zimbabwe Mirror”. RSF asked the minister to order the competent authorities to release the journalist immediately. “The press freedom situation is deplorable. Zimbabwe is no longer a country with the rule of law,” said Robert Ménard, secretary-general of RSF. “Journalists from the independent press are constantly harassed while they are doing their job of publishing information,” he added. RSF noted that Zimbabwe ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression, especially the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information.”
On 21 August 2001, according to information collected by RSF, Chuma was arrested by the police because of an article that had been published a few days earlier, which dealt with the responsibility of independence war veterans in the ransacking and looting of white farms. Constantine Chimakure, journalist with the “Zimbabwe Mirror” and the author of the article, went to Mashonaland West, where many farms were looted. The article said that only two war veterans were arrested, while many farm labourers had been charged for “stealing.” On 16 August, faced with the intensification of the attacks, 300 white farmers and their families were evacuated from Mashonaland West.
RSF recalled that on 14 August, six journalists with the independent “Daily News” were arrested due to the publication of an article entitled “Police Vehicles Used in Farm Looting Spree” (see IFEX alerts of 17, 16 and 15 August 2001). In this document, the “Daily News” said that supporters of ZANU-PF (ruling party) and war veterans used police vehicles to loot and ransack white-owned farms in the north-western region of the country. On 15 August, the journalists were released. They are being charged with “publication of false information.”
RSF is also extremely concerned about the existence of a hit list of journalists established by the Zimbabwean authorities (see IFEX alert of 22 August 2001). “The paranoïa of a government that sees every journalist as a potential spy means that all press professionals run serious risks,” said Ménard.
