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Zimbabwe: Misa Protest Journalists' Arrest in Zimbabwe
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The Namibian (Windhoek)
8 April 2008
Posted to the web 8 April 2008
Windhoek
THE Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) has called on the Zimbabwean government to withdraw the charges against two independent journalists arrested by that country's security forces on April 3.
New York Times correspondent Barry Bearak (58) and British national Stephen Bevan, a freelance journalist with the Sunday Telegraph, were released on bail of US$10 000 yesterday.
They were charged with reporting on the elections without accreditation and will return to court on Thursday.
Both were ordered to stay in Harare, with Bevan housed at the US Embassy while Bearak was at a medical centre, the Dandaro Clinic, after he allegedly slipped and injured his back in jail, Reuters reported yesterday.
Misa regional director Kaitira Kandjii said in a statement yesterday that the arrests of the two were a clear attempt to subvert a peaceful conclusion to the electoral process in which the opposition has already won parliamentary majority.
"Misa demands the release of journalists with immediate effect noting that their continued detention is a violation of fundamental regional and internationally recognised media and freedom of expression rights," Kandjii said before news broke that they had been granted bail.
Misa said the arrests on allegations of practising journalism without accreditation fly in the face of the "so-called positive amendments" made to the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) in December 2007 and consented to by President Robert Mugabe in January this year.
The Zimbabwean government and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), through South African President Thabo Mbeki, argued that the amendments removed restrictions on the work of journalists and the media.
"The latest developments show that nothing has changed in the attitude and practice of the Zimbabwe government towards alternative media voices," Misa said.
The arrests followed on the heels of two South African broadcast engineers arrested and accused of practising journalism without accreditation.
Despite efforts to demonstrate beyond doubt that the two were not journalists, but engineers, the state insisted on charging them.
The actions followed the banning of a number of leading regional and international media organisations from covering the election.
Misa argued that an election was not simply ballot casting, but a process that starts well before the voting and goes far beyond the counting and announcement of results.
"Key in this process is a legislative, social and political environment that allows people to freely associate, receive and impart information, including the right to receive timely and accurate information on the outcome of elections.
These basic electoral tenets have been absent in the March 29 elections," Kandjii said.
He said the environment was instead clouded with intimidation, fear, anxiety and uncertainty.
That was also demonstrated by the failure to release election results and the crackdown on the media and opposition.
"The continued delay in announcing the Presidential election results is a violation of the people of Zimbabwe's right to information.
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This delay nearly a week after the elections, coupled with the arrests of journalists, intimidation and beatings being unleashed on innocent citizens supports Misa's pre-election position that the March 29 elections would be far from free and fair," Kandjii said.
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