MUTARE- The 2020 State of the Media Report produced by the Media Institute for Southern Africa has painted a bleak picture for the media as the state continued to use the law as a weapon against dissenting voices and media workers alike.
MISA said 2020 witnessed a spike in harassment, arrests and assaults of journalists, human rights activists and members of opposition political parties, despite promises by the post-2017 and post-2018 elections Zanu PF government, to break with the ills of the era of former President Robert Mugabe.
“It is against these retrogressive developments, that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, noted in a report during the year under review, that Zimbabwe was suffering from political polarization and poor governance.
“During the year under review, and as the country forged ahead with the media policy and law reform processes, another significant milestone was the licensing of the country’s first-ever privately owned’ television stations and community radio stations,” said MISA.
A record of media violations shows that only once did state media get entangled, however this was not with the law enforcement agents, but opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), while all other recorded incidents targeted private and freelance journalists.
On the other hand, MISA welcomed the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act in July 2020, as part of the unbundling of AIPPA, ‘as one of the progressive steps taken by the government of Zimbabwe towards the alignment of the country’s laws with the Constitution.’
The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), together with the Public Order and Security Act, enacted in 2002, were noted as repressive laws still being used to suppress media freedom and free speech in Zimbabwe.
The media watchdog critiqued government’s determination to ‘amend the 2013 Constitution prior to the alignment of several laws that are not in sync with the country’s supreme law enacted in 2013.’
“However, these otherwise positive outcomes on the media reforms front were marred by the government’s seeming determination to amend the 2013 Constitution prior to the alignment of several laws that are not in sync with the country’s supreme law enacted in 2013.
“This came in the wake of the conclusion of the public hearings on the Constitution Amendment No.2 Bill. The Bill gazetted on 17 January 2020, is made up of 27 sections that propose to amend no less than 30 sections of the Constitution.
“The proposed amendments follow the first amendment to the 2013 Constitution which gave the President powers to unilaterally appoint the Chief Justice, Deputy Chief Justice and Judge President of the High Court,” said MISA in a statement.
