The Media Commission said it will issue the licenses within three days for the rollout of papers including the Daily News, forced to close in 2003 by the government, and Newsday from the Independent-Standard group
This is set to bring media pluralism and provide the Zimbabwean public with a wider choice of news outlets. State media has dominated the news terrain of a country that has been polarized on political grounds giving little room for dissenting voices to be heard thereby compromising the basic fundamentals of democracy- freedom of speech.
The recently constituted Zimbabwe Media Commission announced at a news conference late Thursday that it will issue licenses for four new daily papers in a major expansion of the country's long-suffering press.
The Media Commission said it will issue the licenses within three days for the rollout of papers including the Daily News, forced to close in 2003 by the government, and Newsday from the Independent/Standard group.
The commission has been embroiled in controversy since news emerged that former Media and Information Commission Chairman Tafataona Mahoso, responsible for shutting a number of publications, was engaged as the chief executive officer of the commission that replaced in a process that was supposed to reform the sector.
Commissioners said they needed his administrative experience for the interim.
Another worrying issue for media practitioners in Zimbabwe is the continued existence of laws that undermine their line due as they restrain their freedom of speech and expression. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), Public Order and Security Act (POSA) which were central to the closure of the Daily News and The Tribune are still in place despite assurances from the Mugabe-Tsvangirai unity government to amend these and other "draconian laws."
-VOA News & Simba Nembaware
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Judge President may prove Mugabe hatchet man again
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s new High Court Judge President George Chiweshe, whose controversial appointment has stoked fresh tensions in the power-sharing government, may yet play a decisive role in the quest by President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party to retain power, analysts said.
Chiweshe, who was chairman of a previous discredited electoral commission, is deeply unpopular with Mugabe’s opponents after holding onto election results for five weeks in the watershed March 2008 vote, which saw Mugabe trail Morgan Tsvangirai in the first round of voting.
The 86-year-old went on to win the run-off, which Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Tsvangirai boycotted citing massive violence against his supporters.
Last week Mugabe unilaterally swore-in Chiweshe as Judge President of the High Court without consulting his colleagues in the fragile coalition, triggering uproar from the MDC that accuses Mugabe of intransigence.
Strategic
Analysts said Chiweshe’s new job is strategic in the context of future elections as he will single handedly pick judges from the High Court bench to sit on the Electoral Court to preside over all election related disputes.
“I have no doubt that this was well calculated. Chiweshe is ZANU PF’s man and in his new position he will be able to determine the outcome of all electoral disputes brought to the electoral court,” John Makumbe, a senior political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe said.
“He may once again come to Mugabe’s rescue if it gets to that the MDC should be very worried but I don’t see how this decision will be reversed now.”
Chiweshe, a former army officer who fought in Zimbabwe’s 1970s liberation war, was a High Court judge before being deployed to chair the now defunct electoral commission.
A new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was named last month and is chaired by Simpson Mutambanengwe, a consensus figure who served at the Zimbabwe High Court before moving to the Namibian bench where he worked for more than a decade, including as acting chief justice.
Disputes
ZANU PF and MDC have agreed on some amendments to the electoral rules but analysts said ultimately, if there are disputes, the Electoral Court is the first port of call.
Zimbabwe’s elections have for the past decade been marred by violence, human rights abuses and allegations of rigging with the courts stepping to decide on disputes. But opposition parties have complained about many of the rulings by the courts.
“Mugabe is focused on consolidating power at all costs and so everything that he does unilaterally should be seen in this context,” said Lovemore Madhuku, a constitutional law expert and chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly political pressure group.
The Electoral Court has the power to declare election results null and void on the grounds of fraud, violence and intimidation, ballot tampering and can disqualify a winning candidate and order a re-run.
When the Chiweshe-led electoral commission sat on the March 2008 poll results, the MDC filed an urgent application to the Electoral Court to have them released, but the court threw out the application.
Zimbabwe’s High Court and Supreme Court have since 2002 undergone several changes, with white judges pushed out in favour of black judges.
Compromised
Most of the judges have been given choice farms seized from white commercial farmers and critics say this has compromised their independence, but the judges maintain that they remain impartial.
“It is going to be difficult in future for the MDC to accept the rulings of the Electoral Court judges nominated by Chiweshe. Consequently, will Chiweshe rule in favour of an application by the MDC, which has openly opposed his appointment?” said Makumbe.
The southern African country has always had troubled elections since 2000, with disputes spilling into the courts, but this has rarely changed the outcome, with some Supreme Court judgments being delivered when the life of a parliament has expired and fresh elections are due.
The unity government formed in February last year was meant to put in place political, media and security reforms to prepare for free and fair fresh elections, but troubles over how to share power have stalled most of the reforms.
While the coalition has hobbled along, analysts say it is unlikely to disintegrate as this could plunge the recovering economy back into crisis.
– ZimOnline
Chiweshe, who was chairman of a previous discredited electoral commission, is deeply unpopular with Mugabe’s opponents after holding onto election results for five weeks in the watershed March 2008 vote, which saw Mugabe trail Morgan Tsvangirai in the first round of voting.
The 86-year-old went on to win the run-off, which Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Tsvangirai boycotted citing massive violence against his supporters.
Last week Mugabe unilaterally swore-in Chiweshe as Judge President of the High Court without consulting his colleagues in the fragile coalition, triggering uproar from the MDC that accuses Mugabe of intransigence.
Strategic
Analysts said Chiweshe’s new job is strategic in the context of future elections as he will single handedly pick judges from the High Court bench to sit on the Electoral Court to preside over all election related disputes.
“I have no doubt that this was well calculated. Chiweshe is ZANU PF’s man and in his new position he will be able to determine the outcome of all electoral disputes brought to the electoral court,” John Makumbe, a senior political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe said.
“He may once again come to Mugabe’s rescue if it gets to that the MDC should be very worried but I don’t see how this decision will be reversed now.”
Chiweshe, a former army officer who fought in Zimbabwe’s 1970s liberation war, was a High Court judge before being deployed to chair the now defunct electoral commission.
A new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was named last month and is chaired by Simpson Mutambanengwe, a consensus figure who served at the Zimbabwe High Court before moving to the Namibian bench where he worked for more than a decade, including as acting chief justice.
Disputes
ZANU PF and MDC have agreed on some amendments to the electoral rules but analysts said ultimately, if there are disputes, the Electoral Court is the first port of call.
Zimbabwe’s elections have for the past decade been marred by violence, human rights abuses and allegations of rigging with the courts stepping to decide on disputes. But opposition parties have complained about many of the rulings by the courts.
“Mugabe is focused on consolidating power at all costs and so everything that he does unilaterally should be seen in this context,” said Lovemore Madhuku, a constitutional law expert and chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly political pressure group.
The Electoral Court has the power to declare election results null and void on the grounds of fraud, violence and intimidation, ballot tampering and can disqualify a winning candidate and order a re-run.
When the Chiweshe-led electoral commission sat on the March 2008 poll results, the MDC filed an urgent application to the Electoral Court to have them released, but the court threw out the application.
Zimbabwe’s High Court and Supreme Court have since 2002 undergone several changes, with white judges pushed out in favour of black judges.
Compromised
Most of the judges have been given choice farms seized from white commercial farmers and critics say this has compromised their independence, but the judges maintain that they remain impartial.
“It is going to be difficult in future for the MDC to accept the rulings of the Electoral Court judges nominated by Chiweshe. Consequently, will Chiweshe rule in favour of an application by the MDC, which has openly opposed his appointment?” said Makumbe.
The southern African country has always had troubled elections since 2000, with disputes spilling into the courts, but this has rarely changed the outcome, with some Supreme Court judgments being delivered when the life of a parliament has expired and fresh elections are due.
The unity government formed in February last year was meant to put in place political, media and security reforms to prepare for free and fair fresh elections, but troubles over how to share power have stalled most of the reforms.
While the coalition has hobbled along, analysts say it is unlikely to disintegrate as this could plunge the recovering economy back into crisis.
– ZimOnline
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Homosexual workers face new Mugabe charge
HARARE – Police on Monday slapped two members of the Gays and Lesbians Association of Zimbabwe (GALZ) with a new charge of undermining President Robert Mugabe, one of their lawyers said last night.
The GALZ members, Ellen Chademana and Ignatius Muhambi, were arrested last Friday by police who stormed the organisation’s Harare offices claiming they were looking for dangerous drugs and pornographic material.
The lawyer, David Hofisi, said in addition to formally charging the GALZ employees with possessing drugs and pornographic material, the police had also charged the two with undermining Mugabe by allegedly displaying a plaque in their office showing former San Francisco Mayor Willie Lewis Brown Jr denouncing the President’s homophobia.
“They have now been formally charged and a fresh charge of undermining President Mugabe has now been added,” said Hofisi, who is from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) that is helping defend the two GALZ workers.
According to Hofisi the two were likely to appear in court tomorrow after today’s Africa Day holiday.
Mugabe is known for his dislike for gay and lesbian people who he has described as “worse than dogs and pigs” and the President’s supporters and government agencies have fought to keep the country's small homosexual community away from the public view most notably by barring them from participating at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.
Earlier this year Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai publicly spoke out against homosexuality and said an exercise underway to write a new constitution for Zimbabwe should not be used to smuggle the rights of gay and lesbian people into the country’s fundamental law.
In a sign that the anti-homosexual tendency is probably common across the region, a Malawian judge last week sentenced a gay couple Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza to a maximum of 14 years in prison with hard labor under that country’s anti-gay legislation.
– ZimOnline.
The GALZ members, Ellen Chademana and Ignatius Muhambi, were arrested last Friday by police who stormed the organisation’s Harare offices claiming they were looking for dangerous drugs and pornographic material.
The lawyer, David Hofisi, said in addition to formally charging the GALZ employees with possessing drugs and pornographic material, the police had also charged the two with undermining Mugabe by allegedly displaying a plaque in their office showing former San Francisco Mayor Willie Lewis Brown Jr denouncing the President’s homophobia.
“They have now been formally charged and a fresh charge of undermining President Mugabe has now been added,” said Hofisi, who is from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) that is helping defend the two GALZ workers.
According to Hofisi the two were likely to appear in court tomorrow after today’s Africa Day holiday.
Mugabe is known for his dislike for gay and lesbian people who he has described as “worse than dogs and pigs” and the President’s supporters and government agencies have fought to keep the country's small homosexual community away from the public view most notably by barring them from participating at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.
Earlier this year Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai publicly spoke out against homosexuality and said an exercise underway to write a new constitution for Zimbabwe should not be used to smuggle the rights of gay and lesbian people into the country’s fundamental law.
In a sign that the anti-homosexual tendency is probably common across the region, a Malawian judge last week sentenced a gay couple Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza to a maximum of 14 years in prison with hard labor under that country’s anti-gay legislation.
– ZimOnline.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Mugabe Unilaterally Names Judges
President Mugabe swore in former High Court Judge President Rita Makarau as a Supreme Court justice, replacing her as top High Court justice with George Chiweshe, former chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
The uneasy partners in Zimbabwe's national unity government have one more issue to divide them: President Robert Mugabe's appointment this week of a new Supreme Court judge and four High Court judges without consultation with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to which his Movement for Democratic Change immediately objected.
President Mugabe swore in former High Court Judge President Rita Makarau as a Supreme Court justice, replacing her as top High Court justice with George Chiweshe, former chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Chiweshe was in charge of counting ballots and compiling results in the controversial 2008 elections when his panel was criticized for its delay of more than a month in announcing the outcome of the presidential race (it declared that opposition leader Tsvangirai had failed to receive a majority of votes and said a runoff would be required).
Sworn in with Chiweshe were Nicholas Mathonsi, Andrew Mutema and Garainesu Mawadze.
ZANU-PF sources responded that there was no need for Mr. Mugabe consult Mr. Tsvangirai or Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, the third principal in the government established under the September 2008 Global Political Agreement, as constitutionally the president is only allowed to consult with the Judicial Service Commission.
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa of the Tsvangirai MDC formation said the party was dismayed by the new appointments. ZANU-PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo said President Mugabe has the right to name judges.
Elsewhere in politics, VOA Studio 7 correspondent Mark Peter Ntambe reported that opposition Mavambo party leader Simba Makoni, a former presidential candidate, said the unity government is neither united nor inclusive and is not serving the Zimbabwean people, concluding that its failure to function properly obliges early elections.
- VOA Studio 7
The uneasy partners in Zimbabwe's national unity government have one more issue to divide them: President Robert Mugabe's appointment this week of a new Supreme Court judge and four High Court judges without consultation with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to which his Movement for Democratic Change immediately objected.
President Mugabe swore in former High Court Judge President Rita Makarau as a Supreme Court justice, replacing her as top High Court justice with George Chiweshe, former chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Chiweshe was in charge of counting ballots and compiling results in the controversial 2008 elections when his panel was criticized for its delay of more than a month in announcing the outcome of the presidential race (it declared that opposition leader Tsvangirai had failed to receive a majority of votes and said a runoff would be required).
Sworn in with Chiweshe were Nicholas Mathonsi, Andrew Mutema and Garainesu Mawadze.
ZANU-PF sources responded that there was no need for Mr. Mugabe consult Mr. Tsvangirai or Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, the third principal in the government established under the September 2008 Global Political Agreement, as constitutionally the president is only allowed to consult with the Judicial Service Commission.
Spokesman Nelson Chamisa of the Tsvangirai MDC formation said the party was dismayed by the new appointments. ZANU-PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo said President Mugabe has the right to name judges.
Elsewhere in politics, VOA Studio 7 correspondent Mark Peter Ntambe reported that opposition Mavambo party leader Simba Makoni, a former presidential candidate, said the unity government is neither united nor inclusive and is not serving the Zimbabwean people, concluding that its failure to function properly obliges early elections.
- VOA Studio 7
Thursday, May 20, 2010
UK drama on Mugabe assassination plot
A NEW British drama has the attempted assassination of President Robert Mugabe as its plot.
Chris Ryan’s Strike Back – hailed as the new 24 after the cult American series – is aired across two hours between 9PM and 11PM on Sky2 Thursday.
The drama has six episodes following three different story lines.
The third and fourth episodes see a former British soldier blamed for an assassination attempt on the veteran Zimbabwean leader in Harare.
After news reports about the accused reach London, Collinson, played by Andrew Lincoln, is tasked with silencing the would-be shooter Felix Masuku (Shaun Parkes), and sends John Porter (Richard Armitage) undercover to Chikurubi Maximum Prison where the criminal is being held.
Once inside, he breaks Masuku out of jail, but is pursued by Colonel Tshuma's Elite Guard.Porter and Masuku realise they cannot escape from Colonel Tshuma and seek refuge in an orphanage, where they prepare to do battle.
The drama is based on Chris Ryan’s fictional best-seller, explain the makers of the film which was shot in South Africa.
-New Zimbabwe
Chris Ryan’s Strike Back – hailed as the new 24 after the cult American series – is aired across two hours between 9PM and 11PM on Sky2 Thursday.
The drama has six episodes following three different story lines.
The third and fourth episodes see a former British soldier blamed for an assassination attempt on the veteran Zimbabwean leader in Harare.
After news reports about the accused reach London, Collinson, played by Andrew Lincoln, is tasked with silencing the would-be shooter Felix Masuku (Shaun Parkes), and sends John Porter (Richard Armitage) undercover to Chikurubi Maximum Prison where the criminal is being held.
Once inside, he breaks Masuku out of jail, but is pursued by Colonel Tshuma's Elite Guard.Porter and Masuku realise they cannot escape from Colonel Tshuma and seek refuge in an orphanage, where they prepare to do battle.
The drama is based on Chris Ryan’s fictional best-seller, explain the makers of the film which was shot in South Africa.
-New Zimbabwe
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Impact of Zimbabwe's Operation Murambatsvina Continues Five Years Later - Amnesty Intn'l
Amnesty and its partners said they will submit a petition to Prime Minister Tsvangirai this week urging Harare to provide alternative housing to those still displaced by Murambatsvina, or else compensate them for their economic loss
Five years after thousands of homes in Harare and other Zimbabwean cities and towns were demolished in Operation Murambatsvina, thousands of victims remain homeless and the unity government has done nothing to alleviate their suffering, Amnesty International and a number of local non-governmental organizations said in a report.
Amnesty and its partners said they will submit a petition to Prime Minister Tsvangirai this week urging Harare to provide alternative housing to those still displaced by Murambatsvina, or else compensate them for their economic loss.
The reports said many of those driven from their homes were relocated to rural areas, found shelter in overcrowded urban housing or were pushed by authorities into designated settlement areas.
The Zimbabwean government on May 18, 2005, began demolishing informal settlements across the country leaving more than estimated 700,000 people homeless or without livelihoods or both, the United Nations concluded.
Following worldwide condemnation the government launched a housing program called Operation Garikai, but few if any of those displaced by Operation Murambatsvina received new homes and the project was later abandoned.
Amnesty International Zimbabwe Researcher Simeon Mawanza told VOA Studio 7 that the Harare government seems to have completely forgotten the victims of Operation Murambatsvina.
-VOA Studio 7
Five years after thousands of homes in Harare and other Zimbabwean cities and towns were demolished in Operation Murambatsvina, thousands of victims remain homeless and the unity government has done nothing to alleviate their suffering, Amnesty International and a number of local non-governmental organizations said in a report.
Amnesty and its partners said they will submit a petition to Prime Minister Tsvangirai this week urging Harare to provide alternative housing to those still displaced by Murambatsvina, or else compensate them for their economic loss.
The reports said many of those driven from their homes were relocated to rural areas, found shelter in overcrowded urban housing or were pushed by authorities into designated settlement areas.
The Zimbabwean government on May 18, 2005, began demolishing informal settlements across the country leaving more than estimated 700,000 people homeless or without livelihoods or both, the United Nations concluded.
Following worldwide condemnation the government launched a housing program called Operation Garikai, but few if any of those displaced by Operation Murambatsvina received new homes and the project was later abandoned.
Amnesty International Zimbabwe Researcher Simeon Mawanza told VOA Studio 7 that the Harare government seems to have completely forgotten the victims of Operation Murambatsvina.
-VOA Studio 7
Monday, May 17, 2010
ZANU PF wants only 10 white farmers in province
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s chaotic land reform programme assumed a new twist last week amid reports that only 10 white farmers would be allowed to remain in the country’s Mashonaland Central province under a new plan hatched by hardliners from President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party in the province.
The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents the interests of the besieged Zimbabwean white farmers, said some of its members were being invited to “a provincial centre” where they are informed of the decision to allow them to continue farming.
“The week before last we had picked up information that some farmers were being called in to a provincial centre to be formally advised that they were to be one of the ten farmers who were allegedly to remain and continue farming in each district of that particular province,” a union spokesperson said last week.
Sources said the province in question was Mashonaland Central which has some of the best agricultural land in the country but has also seen some of the worst cases of violence linked to the seizure of white-owned farms.
“This news was of course received with some relief by some and with some scepticism by others, particularly as we are aiming towards a moratorium being declared on evictions and prosecutions as part of the land audit which will hopefully be taking place in the not too distant future,” the spokesperson said.
The CFU has a pending Supreme Court application in which it is seeking an order calling for a moratorium on the ongoing prosecutions and evictions of white farmers by Mugabe’s supporters.
The union wants an order suspending ongoing prosecutions and criminal proceedings against several of its members accused of allegedly contravening Section 3(3) of the Gazetted Land Act.
The union contends that the prosecutions are “invalid and of no force” and violate the constitutional rights of the farmers.
The Attorney General’s Office has in recent months stepped up prosecution of white farmers it claims are refusing to vacate land acquired by the government for purposes of redistribution to land less blacks.
This is despite the fact that the Southern African Development (SADC) Tribunal ruled in 2008 that the government’s land reform programme is discriminatory and illegal under the SADC Treaty to which Zimbabwe is signatory.
Hordes of ZANU PF supporters, so-called war veterans and members of the army and police stepped up farm invasions almost immediately after the formation of the inclusive government in February 2009.
Commercial farmers’ organisations say invaders have since raided at least 150 of the about 300 remaining white-owned commercial farms, a development that has intensified doubts over whether the unity government will withstand attempts by ZANU PF hardliners to sabotage it.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has ordered the arrest and prosecution of the farm invaders but his word is largely ignored with farmers reporting continuing invasions of their properties and disruption of farming activities.
The International Monetary Fund and Western countries have – on top of other conditions – made it clear that they would not consider giving aid to the Harare government while farm invasion continue.
Zimbabwe has since 2000, when land reforms began, relied on food imports and handouts from international food agencies mainly due to failure by resettled black peasants to maintain production on former white farms.
– ZimOnline
The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents the interests of the besieged Zimbabwean white farmers, said some of its members were being invited to “a provincial centre” where they are informed of the decision to allow them to continue farming.
“The week before last we had picked up information that some farmers were being called in to a provincial centre to be formally advised that they were to be one of the ten farmers who were allegedly to remain and continue farming in each district of that particular province,” a union spokesperson said last week.
Sources said the province in question was Mashonaland Central which has some of the best agricultural land in the country but has also seen some of the worst cases of violence linked to the seizure of white-owned farms.
“This news was of course received with some relief by some and with some scepticism by others, particularly as we are aiming towards a moratorium being declared on evictions and prosecutions as part of the land audit which will hopefully be taking place in the not too distant future,” the spokesperson said.
The CFU has a pending Supreme Court application in which it is seeking an order calling for a moratorium on the ongoing prosecutions and evictions of white farmers by Mugabe’s supporters.
The union wants an order suspending ongoing prosecutions and criminal proceedings against several of its members accused of allegedly contravening Section 3(3) of the Gazetted Land Act.
The union contends that the prosecutions are “invalid and of no force” and violate the constitutional rights of the farmers.
The Attorney General’s Office has in recent months stepped up prosecution of white farmers it claims are refusing to vacate land acquired by the government for purposes of redistribution to land less blacks.
This is despite the fact that the Southern African Development (SADC) Tribunal ruled in 2008 that the government’s land reform programme is discriminatory and illegal under the SADC Treaty to which Zimbabwe is signatory.
Hordes of ZANU PF supporters, so-called war veterans and members of the army and police stepped up farm invasions almost immediately after the formation of the inclusive government in February 2009.
Commercial farmers’ organisations say invaders have since raided at least 150 of the about 300 remaining white-owned commercial farms, a development that has intensified doubts over whether the unity government will withstand attempts by ZANU PF hardliners to sabotage it.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has ordered the arrest and prosecution of the farm invaders but his word is largely ignored with farmers reporting continuing invasions of their properties and disruption of farming activities.
The International Monetary Fund and Western countries have – on top of other conditions – made it clear that they would not consider giving aid to the Harare government while farm invasion continue.
Zimbabwe has since 2000, when land reforms began, relied on food imports and handouts from international food agencies mainly due to failure by resettled black peasants to maintain production on former white farms.
– ZimOnline
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
police question editor
The editor of THE Masvingo Mirror, Golden Maunganidze, was yesterday being interrogated by police in Harare over a story he wrote linking Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi to the disappearance of gifts meant for Robert Mugabe, writes Tichaona Sibanda for SW Radio Africa.
Hundreds of tonnes of sugar donated to Mugabe by party activists in Masvingo province on his 86th birthday, reportedly went missing and have never been found. The ‘theft’ triggered a massive upheaval in the province with certain top officials accusing each other of the disappearance.
Mzembi was one of those mentioned in a story written by Maunganidze. The Minister immediately filed charges of criminal defamation against the editor. This forced Maunganidze to go into hiding after police threatened him with arrest over the story.
Acting on advice from the media watchdog MISA, Maunganidze travelled to Harare Monday and presented himself to the police at the Harare central station. A journalist in Harare told us; ‘The information that we have is he’s not under arrest but is being questioned over the story he wrote linking Mzembi to the alleged theft of gifts meant for Mugabe’.
The government regularly uses the criminal defamation law as a weapon to silence journalists in the country. Five Harare based journalists were last week summoned to court to answer charges over a story linking business mogul Phillip Chiyangwa, and local government Minister Ignatius Chombo, to a serious land scandal in the capital city.
Hundreds of tonnes of sugar donated to Mugabe by party activists in Masvingo province on his 86th birthday, reportedly went missing and have never been found. The ‘theft’ triggered a massive upheaval in the province with certain top officials accusing each other of the disappearance.
Mzembi was one of those mentioned in a story written by Maunganidze. The Minister immediately filed charges of criminal defamation against the editor. This forced Maunganidze to go into hiding after police threatened him with arrest over the story.
Acting on advice from the media watchdog MISA, Maunganidze travelled to Harare Monday and presented himself to the police at the Harare central station. A journalist in Harare told us; ‘The information that we have is he’s not under arrest but is being questioned over the story he wrote linking Mzembi to the alleged theft of gifts meant for Mugabe’.
The government regularly uses the criminal defamation law as a weapon to silence journalists in the country. Five Harare based journalists were last week summoned to court to answer charges over a story linking business mogul Phillip Chiyangwa, and local government Minister Ignatius Chombo, to a serious land scandal in the capital city.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
FAO appeals to public to blow whistle on hunger
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)will next week Tuesday launch “The 1billionhungry project” at its headquarters in Rome, Italy aimed at creating a global movement to fight for adequate food for all.
The campaign is led by internationalpersonalities from the arts and sporting worlds such as France's Senegalese-born Manchester City midfielder Patrick Vieira, Olympic gold medalist fencer Valentina Vezzali, US track and field legend Carl Lewis, and FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.
Other celebrities who have lent their support to the campaign include award-winning British actor Jeremy Irons plus European Premier League footballers Raul Gonzalez of Real Madrid, João Moutinho of Sporting de Lisboa, Gary Neville of Manchester United, Luca Toni of Roma and René Adler of Bayer Leverkusen. Their unique contributions will also be unveiled at the 1billionhungry project launch.
Using a whistle as a campaign icon and an innovative online petition as a campaigning tool, “The 1billionhungry project” will give people the chance to express their disgust that in the 21st century more than one billion people still do not get enough to eat.
The project has been made possible by the pro Bono help of the advertising company McCann Erickson, the billboard and display company IGP Decaux, the FilmMaster production company, the European Professional Football Leagues, and a growing list of civil society partners.
-FAO,Simba Nembaware
The campaign is led by internationalpersonalities from the arts and sporting worlds such as France's Senegalese-born Manchester City midfielder Patrick Vieira, Olympic gold medalist fencer Valentina Vezzali, US track and field legend Carl Lewis, and FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.
Other celebrities who have lent their support to the campaign include award-winning British actor Jeremy Irons plus European Premier League footballers Raul Gonzalez of Real Madrid, João Moutinho of Sporting de Lisboa, Gary Neville of Manchester United, Luca Toni of Roma and René Adler of Bayer Leverkusen. Their unique contributions will also be unveiled at the 1billionhungry project launch.
Using a whistle as a campaign icon and an innovative online petition as a campaigning tool, “The 1billionhungry project” will give people the chance to express their disgust that in the 21st century more than one billion people still do not get enough to eat.
The project has been made possible by the pro Bono help of the advertising company McCann Erickson, the billboard and display company IGP Decaux, the FilmMaster production company, the European Professional Football Leagues, and a growing list of civil society partners.
-FAO,Simba Nembaware
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Zimbabwe Cabinet to Review Sensitive Issue of Hosting North Korean Soccer Teams
Education Minister David Coltart, senator for the Bulawayo constituency of Khumalo, said it is not yet clear if the North Koreans will train in Zimbabwe during the 2010 World Cup starting next month in South Africa.
The Zimbabwean Cabinet on Tuesday was to take up the highly sensitive question of to whether the country should invite North Korea's soccer team to train in the country through the World Cup in neighboring South Africa, amid demands by Matabeleland regional activists that the team not be welcomed.
Objections have to do with the fact that the Zimbabwean Fifth Brigade, accused of committing massacres during the 1980s Gukurahundi conflict between rival liberation forces in Matabeleland, was North Korean-trained.
Education Minister David Coltart, senator for the Bulawayo constituency of Khumalo, said it is not yet clear if the North Koreans will train in Zimbabwe during the 2010 World Cup next month in South Africa.
Coltart said that while it is unfair to blame the young soccer players for the Fifth Brigade massacres in the Midlands and Matabeleland regions in the 1980s, the government should take into account the demands by regional Matabeleland activists that the North Korean team not train in Zimbabwe.
Coltart told VOA Studio 7 that there is no need to open up old wounds by hosting a team whose presence in the country may provoke political disturbances. “It is important that we deal with this issue in a sensitive manner so that we don’t allow a visit like this to inflame passions or re-open wounds,” Coltart said.
Brilliant Mhlanga, a member of the Matabeleland activist group Ibhetshu Likazulu, said the North Korean soccer players would not be welcome in Matabeleland or anywhere else in Zimbabwe. He said would be a "symbolic insult" to have the North Koreans train in Zimbabwe as the Fifth Brigade atrocities remain unresolved.
“Our wounds are still fresh and it is even more insulting to the spirit of those whose innocent blood was shed after undergoing the most horrific, evil and satanic acts ever committed in the history of modern day Zimbabwe,” he said.
Historians estimate that more than 20,000 people, mainly of the Ndebele ethnic group, were killed by soldiers of the Fifth Brigade in a purge of supporters of then-opposition leader Joshua Nkomo, head of the Zimbabwe African People's Union, which later merged with the Zimbabwe African National Union of Robert Mugabe.
Nkomo became Zimbabwean vice president under the Unity Accord which ended the fighting.
President Robert Mugabe has described the massacres as “an act of madness,” he has failed to publicly apologize for atrocities or provide compensation for the families of civilians killed by government troops.
-VOA News
The Zimbabwean Cabinet on Tuesday was to take up the highly sensitive question of to whether the country should invite North Korea's soccer team to train in the country through the World Cup in neighboring South Africa, amid demands by Matabeleland regional activists that the team not be welcomed.
Objections have to do with the fact that the Zimbabwean Fifth Brigade, accused of committing massacres during the 1980s Gukurahundi conflict between rival liberation forces in Matabeleland, was North Korean-trained.
Education Minister David Coltart, senator for the Bulawayo constituency of Khumalo, said it is not yet clear if the North Koreans will train in Zimbabwe during the 2010 World Cup next month in South Africa.
Coltart said that while it is unfair to blame the young soccer players for the Fifth Brigade massacres in the Midlands and Matabeleland regions in the 1980s, the government should take into account the demands by regional Matabeleland activists that the North Korean team not train in Zimbabwe.
Coltart told VOA Studio 7 that there is no need to open up old wounds by hosting a team whose presence in the country may provoke political disturbances. “It is important that we deal with this issue in a sensitive manner so that we don’t allow a visit like this to inflame passions or re-open wounds,” Coltart said.
Brilliant Mhlanga, a member of the Matabeleland activist group Ibhetshu Likazulu, said the North Korean soccer players would not be welcome in Matabeleland or anywhere else in Zimbabwe. He said would be a "symbolic insult" to have the North Koreans train in Zimbabwe as the Fifth Brigade atrocities remain unresolved.
“Our wounds are still fresh and it is even more insulting to the spirit of those whose innocent blood was shed after undergoing the most horrific, evil and satanic acts ever committed in the history of modern day Zimbabwe,” he said.
Historians estimate that more than 20,000 people, mainly of the Ndebele ethnic group, were killed by soldiers of the Fifth Brigade in a purge of supporters of then-opposition leader Joshua Nkomo, head of the Zimbabwe African People's Union, which later merged with the Zimbabwe African National Union of Robert Mugabe.
Nkomo became Zimbabwean vice president under the Unity Accord which ended the fighting.
President Robert Mugabe has described the massacres as “an act of madness,” he has failed to publicly apologize for atrocities or provide compensation for the families of civilians killed by government troops.
-VOA News
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