In solidarity of arrested journalists

Mutare – While there has been much ado over the arrest of scribes from mainstream media, for publishing a story fingering a top cop in an elephant poaching saga, harassment of journalists has been rampant in Zimbabwe.

To put the macrocosm of police high handedness with the media, in the microcosm of the arrest of Mabasa Sasa, Brian Chitemba and Tinashe Farawo, all of the state owned Zimpapers media house, is only to find invigorated currency to renew the fight for media freedom.

For their arrests came barely days after a trio of reporters, based in the eastern border city of Mutare, were also arrested in Rusape, their sin, covering a Movement for Democratic Change organised demonstration, against alleged ZANU PF misrule.

Sydney Saize, Bernard Chiketo and Kenneth Nyangani were, on 23 October 2015, held at Rusape Police Station, only to be released without charges.

To put these developments into perspective, one has to look at the nature of politics, the structure of the media and the legal framework guiding its operations in Zimbabwe.

For these developments, are only a manifestation of deep seated aversion to media, particularly private press, which has exposed government’s underhand dealings and nefarious activities of politicians, one may hazard to conclude?

Due to this relationship of cat and mouse the media has not, for expediency, been given the proper structural frameworks to ensure that it serves the nation’s interest. The concomitant growth of a polarised media, distinct in its dual division, of private and public is therefore not by default but by design.

A worrying trend, disintegrated response

These events, denoting regress, only serve to crystallise, in some sense, recent threats by political power brokers against private media, for reporting on the ZANU PF succession conundrum.

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information Gorge Charamba, a government employee-quasi politician also jumped on the bandwagon, barraging media for reporting on factionalism in the revolutionary party. He ominously warned private media not to cry foul when the ‘hammer’ descends.

While Charamba, who is also presidential spokesperson, made these threats against private media, state media, which were all over themselves to disparage the arrest of their kith, was silent over these threats. Shame is also on the private press for failing to take a visible stance to protect their own.

The state media’s, response to the arrest of their own was not spectacular but well coordinated, as an Editorial Comment adorned the front page of The Herald, on the morrow of the arrests.

The irony of the allusion to the ‘hammer’ by Charamba, and to the law of instrument, as the editorial stated, was not lost on the keen observer. For a while the state media was silent when Charamba made the hammer threats, they criticised the police for using the hammer against their own.

While the police arrested the journalists for allegedly publishing false hoods, this show of power is evidence of a trigger happy force, ready to criminalise, professionals doing their duty.

“The falsehoods have dented and tarnished the image of the (police) for no apparent reason. The story does not only affect the Zimbabwe Republic Police but the entire security apparatus,” police spokesperson Charity Charamba told reporters at a presser, following the arrests. She argued that journalists have the duty to identify the culprits and not sensationalise the matter.

While it is prudent in all circumstances, where there are accusations of such nature, that culprits be named and shamed, sometimes journalists have their hands tied.

For, while they have the onus to make exhaustive investigations, it is without their jurisdiction to probe deeper into issues, as this is a purview of the sanctioned security forces in a country.

It is therefore regrettable that the police sought to investigate the journalists and not the issue, which is an albatross to our tourism industry, that of rampant killing of the endangered elephants.

Civic society response

Media freedom watchdog Media Institute of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe Chapter was also at the fore front of civic society response to the arbitrary arrests condemning them as reminiscent of the assault on private press, which led to the promulgation of repressive media laws.

Says MISA, in its quarterly report on media freedom, “Zimbabwe’s private media is under siege reminiscent of the relentless persecution it endured at the hands of state and ruling Zanu PF officials culminating in the subsequent enactment of the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) in 2002.

“The ongoing relentless onslaught against the private media has an uncanny resemblance to similar attacks and threats that culminated in the bombing of the Daily News printing press in 2001 and its subsequent closure in 2003 under AIPPA before it resumed publication years later.

“These attacks invoke a sense of déjà vu (sense of recurrence), when several journalists and media practitioners were subjected to arrests, harassment and unlawful detention following the enactment of AIPPA.  The intention therefore is to cow the media from reporting on the goings-on in Zanu PF.

“MISA-Zimbabwe urges the country’s leadership to exercise restraint as threats to deal with the media have potential to trigger extra-legal violation of media freedom by political activists. Government officials and ordinary members of the public can use civil remedies through the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe for remedy whenever they feel aggrieved by the media. ”

While such pronouncements serve to demonstrate a clear commitment, on the part of civil society, on tracking media freedom violations, journalists are still yet to be organized into one professional entity that represents their interests.

As Dickson Chaeruka, a correspondent with The Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Union publication, The Worker, says there is an urgent need for an employment council to look into issues of journalists’ welfare.

Chaeruka contends that if journalists continue being treated at the whims and wishes of their employers, they will fail to execute their duties professionally.

“There is need to set up an NEC to look at issues of journalists as professionals and to represent their welfare needs to employees not this situation where different employers treat journalists differently.”

This recommendation is also captured in the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry (IMPI) report, which also sheds light on the tough task ahead for professional journalism to thrive in Zimbabwe.

I sincerely hope, as I pen off, that The Herald trio will not be unduly punished for carrying out their duties, and that this will be a learning curve to those in the state media that professional journalism is criminalised, despite where one writes for.

I hope this will be a wakeup call to state media that all journalists are under threat as long as the repressive laws, which are not aligned to the Constitution, continue being arbitrarily; applied. All journalists are under threat, despite affiliation, let the private press stands alone to fight for media freedom.

It is time for an invigorated assault on the statutes that threaten the core fundamental of a democratic society, which is a free press that can act as a check and balance to those in power, for without this watchdog their power excesses would be too painful to bear.

The whole media industry is under threat and so goes my solidarity with my incarcerated comrades.

Photo credit: www.voanews.com