Four independent journalists charged

Four of Zimbabwe’s leading independent journalists were detained by the police on Wednesday and charged under the draconian Law and Order Maintenance Act in connection with a story that appeared on the front page of the ‘Daily News’ on Tuesday, the newspaper’s management told IRIN.

Geoff Nyarota, the editor of the country’s only independent daily, his deputy Bill Saidi, news editor John Gambanga and journalist Sam Munyavi were all called or taken to Harare’s central police station during the course of Wednesday. They were charged with publishing a false story likely to cause “alarm or despondency”, under Section 50 of the colonial-era emergency act, but by late afternoon had still not appeared in court.

The authorities’ anger with the newspaper apparently stemmed from the lead story which alleged that police vehicles were used by suspected ruling ZANU-PF supporters to loot the property of white commercial farmers at the weekend in Mashonaland West province.

“It’s obviously devastating, it’s yet another blow the newspaper has to grapple with,” chief executive Much Masunda told IRIN. “Key guys in the editorial department have been taken out of circulation, it makes life hell. But it is not going to stop us, after going this far to become the country’s leading daily newspaper in just a short space of time.”

The ‘Daily News’ is no stranger to controversy. It is regularly slammed by the government as the voice of the opposition, and in January limpet mines were used to blow up the paper’s printing press, an act widely attributed to the security services.
Masunda said that in the current case of the four journalists, it was up to the state to prove its charge, and pointed out that the Supreme Court in the past had ruled that Section 50 of the Law and Order Maintenance Act was unconstitutional.

He added that there was “up to this point no indication” that the newspaper’s editorial board was willing to retract the contentious story.