Media owner to take govt to court on travel ban

Zimbabwe's only remaining independent newspaper publisher is challenging the confiscation of his passport by government officials last week. "My lawyers are serving papers on the Minister of Home Affairs [and other immigration officials] today ... We have described the action as grossly irrational ... It violates my rights to freedom, expression and thought," Trevor Ncube, the Zimbabwean owner and publisher of the Standard and the Independent newspapers in Zimbabwe, and the weekly Mail & Guardian in South Africa, told IRIN. The authorities also seized the passport of prominent opposition member Paul Themba Nyathi on his arrival in Zimbabwe from South Africa on Friday. Ncube's passport was impounded last Wednesday when he arrived in Bulawayo from South Africa. The publisher, who frequently travels between the two countries, said he had been told his name was on a government list of 17 prominent Zimbabweans whose passports would be confiscated if they travelled back to their homeland. The list apparently includes the names of a well-known activist and a human rights lawyer. According to the official Sunday Mail newspaper, Zimbabwe recently passed a constitutional amendment that gives the "government powers to seize the passports of citizens deemed by the state to be undermining national interests during their travels abroad". Ncube told IRIN that he expected the High Court in the capital, Harare, to set a date on Tuesday for hearing his application.