Zimbabwe warns wayward press

By Michael Wines The New York Times

FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2006

JOHANNESBURG Zimbabwe's security minister was quoted in a government-controlled newspaper Friday as saying that "the net will soon close" on those remaining journalists whose criticism of the government threatens the nation's security.

 

The warning, by National Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, followed the arrest this month of employees and directors of Voice of the People, a Harare news organization that had broadcast uncensored reports into Zimbabwe via a shortwave transmitter in Madagascar operated by the Netherlands' government.

 

The police in Mutare, in eastern Zimbabwe, also seized a well-known journalist on Jan. 18 and held him for three days on charges of violating media laws. The journalist, Sidney Saize, was released last Saturday, but prosecutors indicated that he would still face charges.

 

Mutasa indicated that more arrests were forthcoming, saying that some Zimbabwean journalists had worked for foreign news organizations under pseudonyms but that the government "had since identified them from their closets."

 

The journalists were "driven by the love for the United States dollars and British pounds, which they are paid by the foreign media houses to peddle lies," he was quoted as saying in a report in the Manica Post, a state-run newspaper in Mutare.

 

Independent journalists have been under assault in Zimbabwe since 2003, when the government closed down the nation's biggest newspaper, The Daily News, which frequently criticized President Robert Mugabe's government.

 

Only two weekly newspapers of significance remain outside government control, and all broadcast outlets are state-run.

 

Civil liberties advocates inside Zimbabwe nevertheless said in interviews Friday that the latest comments might signal a renewed effort by the government to close down remaining channels for disagreement with official policy.

 

Otto Saki, an attorney with the advocacy group Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, said that the government appeared to be implementing proposals made at a December conference of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF, to suppress dissent.

 

That party conference singled out independent journalists, human rights groups and civic organizations as "weapons of mass destruction" that presented a threat to the state.

 

"This is the culmination of various efforts and statements by government officials on their intentions to possibly rein in individual organizations that are in the fore of critiquing human rights and general governance," Saki said in a telephone interview from Harare, the capital. "It's a well-calculated policy which is going to be orchestrated with the help of various arms of the government."