New assault on free press

A regional media watchdog on Friday condemned the continued detention of the editor-in-chief of Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper, Geoff Nyarota, as a fresh attack on dissenting views.

"This is a continuation of the government's strategy to silence all who dare to speak out against it," director of the Winhoek-based Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA), Luckson Chipare, told IRIN.

Nyarota and Wilf Mbanga, a former director of the newspaper's parent company, were arrested at their homes early on Thursday morning and were still in custody on Friday, Nyarota's lawyer said.

"Both Mr Nyarota and Mr Mbanga have been charged with fraud, and alternatively contravening an act that prohibits the supply of false information to a lawful authority, and in their case to the Zimbabwe Investment Centre," Lawrence Chibwe told Reuters.

Daily News editor Nyarota said his arrest was part of a government drive against the private media before presidential elections in which Mugabe is facing the biggest challenge of his career. "This is all part of the harassment we are being subjected to," he said by telephone. The newspaper was launched in 1999 and has been highly critical of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

The government alleges that Zimbabwe's privately-owned media is funded by opponents and wants to topple Mugabe over his land policies. Several foreign journalists have been expelled from Zimbabwe and a bomb destroyed the printing press of the Daily News in January.

On the same day as the arrests came news that the state's media would be expanded in preparation for the election campaign. The Johannesburg-based newspaper Business Day reported on Thursday that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) is seeking a deal with satellite television services provider Multichoice Africa, in a bid to widen viewership.

The newspaper reported that the authorities were working hard to launch another huge government-controlled media group to be known as the New Ziana. This organisation, an attempt to bring state media under one umbrella, will have its own 24-hour television and radio stations, eight newspapers, publishing services and recording facilities to augment state-controlled Zimpapers and the ZBC.

The company, expected to be a rigid government monopoly, will emerge from the state news agency ZIANA, the Community Newspaper Group and other concerns. Last week Mugabe's Information Minister Jonathan Moyo and his department's permanent secretary, George Charamba, held a meeting with the government-controlled Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust, ZIANA, editors and consultants to finalise the plans.

In renewed belligerence against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Moyo reportedly told journalists at the meeting that anyone found to be sympathetic to the MDC would be immediately fired without benefits. Moyo told the journalists that they did not have to worry about the profitability of the new organisation as that was not its main objective.

"We were told that our main brief is to support the government. He said issues of profitability were not important as the government would bankroll the new media group. Some of us had voiced concern that the project would not be sustainable if it was seen as being partisan in the eyes of the public," said a source at the meeting.