To mark World Press Freedom Day, Irish Amnesty's Zimbabwe group has produced an edition of their country's Daily News. In it Lloyd Mudiwa writes about what sent him into exile in Ireland
The human rights situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated rapidly this year, pushing the southern African country to the fore of international attention. The Zimbabwe government is accused of intimidating, arbitrarily arresting, torturing and attacking the political opposition, commercial farmers, human rights defenders, independent journalists and media houses, as well as the judiciary, teachers and students.
"Harare is using stringent security and media legislation to silence dissent, perpetrate human rights violations and place the basic rights of Zimbabweans under siege," Amnesty International said in a report published to mark World Press Freedom Day last year.
The Zimbabwe government, however, denies violating its citizen's rights by conveniently bending the constitution. Information and publicity minister, Prof Jonathan Moyo, has been quoted as saying the laws, enacted following President Robert Mugabe's re-election for a sixth term in March 2002, were necessary to maintain national security and professionalism in journalism.
Having worked as a journalist for Zimbabwe's leading independent newspaper, the Daily News, I can vouch that the government is using brute force and selectively applying the repressive laws to put rights of perceived opponents under siege.
I am among a dozen journalists, all from the independent media, who have been charged under the internationally condemned media laws. I was detained or arrested four times in the last two years for doing my job; I was detained for covering a protest by university students against the privatisation of education and an anti-violence demonstration by women on Valentine's Day 2003.
In April 2003, I was charged with contempt of court over a story published in which a High Court judge provisionally declared that the Cabinet was illegal. This charge was brought up a day after a magistrate's court referred to the Supreme Court a matter in which I was accused of publishing a falsehood over a story in which I reported that supporters of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) party beheaded a woman. On May 7th, 2003, the Supreme Court struck down the notorious section of the press-gag laws, which made it an offence to publish "falsehoods", after the government conceded the provisions violated constitutional protections of freedom of expression. "We will respect the law as we have always done," Moyo said soon after the ruling that watered down the tough anti-media legislation. The ruling, he claimed, dispelled the notion there was no rule of law in the country.
But, just hours later, the government cracked down on the press and started moves to expel Andrew Meldrum, a US national and a journalist with the the British Guardian (whose reports have also been carried by The Irish Times).
Meldrum (51) was deported a few days later on dubious allegations that he was a threat to national security and in defiance of three High Court orders barring his banishment. His wife was forced out of the country a few days after him. Meldrum had been tried on allegations of publishing a falsehood over the same report as me, alleging Zanu PF supporters beheaded a woman. Although he was acquitted in July last year, the government had tried to expel Meldrum hours later, but suspended the deportation following an application to the High Court.
Mugabe has also violated rights while exploiting land distribution in Zimbabwe for his own political expediency.
To a casual onlooker, he appears a man on a crusade to redress colonial imbalances, but a closer examination shows that Mugabe is using the rhetoric of black empowerment to gain control of the entire economy for his party. In 1998, Mugabe accepted a United Nations Development Programme plan for reviving land redistribution, backed by Western funding. But, after losing a national referendum for the adoption of a draft constitution in 2000, used as a barometer for his popularity, Mugabe knew he needed something more dramatic in order to win elections in two years.
• The full Daily News edition can be seen on Amnesty's website - www.amnesty.ie