Legal battle to publish The Daily News continues

Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper, the Daily News, faces another legal hurdle in its bid to resume publication. Sam Nkomo, chief executive officer of the paper's publisher, Associated Newspapers Zimbabwe (ANZ), told IRIN on Monday that the Daily News, which has been critical of government, had still not resumed operations and might not be able to do so for some time. "We got an order from the High Court on Friday - ordering police off our premises and factory, and ordering them not to interfere with our normal business activities, which is publishing the Daily News - and we served that order to the police commissioner ... and the individual police officers named," he said. However, while "they all accepted the High Court order, they said they had not received any instructions from their bosses [to allow ANZ to continue operations]". The newspaper's staff were thus unable to bring out an edition on Saturday. Nkomo said he then received a call at the weekend "to say they want to serve court papers on me". "They left a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court with my wife," Nkomo added. He described the Supreme Court appeal as "simply a trick ... for them it's good because it means we cannot publish [while the appeal is pending]". IRIN reported on Friday that ANZ's urgent application would be lodged with the High Court on Monday. Police occupied the newspaper's offices in central Harare and its printing factory on 19 December, despite the fact that ANZ had just won another legal victory, allowing them to continue publishing while the issue of its registration was being fought in the courts. The Daily News and its sister newspaper, The Daily News on Sunday, were first closed in September last year. Although various legal battles still had to be fought, Nkomo told IRIN that "we believe that one day we will win a true victory".