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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Court victory for Zimbabwean journalists |
| 2009-06-06 |
| [Iran Press TV Latest] Zimbabwe's High Court rules in favor of journalists and labels a state media commission responsible for accrediting journalists as illegal. The court said on Friday that the commission had no legal authority as its term expired in January 2008, a lawyer for a journalists' lobby group said after the court ruling. Four freelance reporters - Stanley Gam, Valentine Maponga, Stanley Kwenda and Jealous Mawarire - sued Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai after he barred them from covering the weekend trade bloc summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), held in the resort town of Victoria Falls. "Applicants are hereby allowed, upon being registered with the COMESA summit secretariat, to cover the event without the need to produce an accreditation card from the media and information commission," said Judge Bharat Patel. The judge added that accreditation carried out by MIC from January 2008 was invalid. In 2002, President Robert Mugabe's government passed the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act that compels journalists and media organizations to register with a government-appointed media commission. Critics say Mugabe has used the media laws to muzzle his opponents. In April, Mugabe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the state-run Herald newspaper that the new government was looking at relaxing the stringent media laws. A new body was supposed to be appointed by the unity government. But a power-sharing pact signed last year by Mugabe and Tsvangirai, which led to the formation of the unity government in February, is yet to be fully implemented. |
| Posted by:Fred |