Harare — Your Excellency, The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives, is strongly concerned about the recent intimidations against foreign media and their correspondents in Zimbabwe.
According to our sources, on 17 February, the foreign correspondents, Joseph Winter of the British Broadcasting Corporation and Mercedes Sayagues of The Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg) and other newspapers, were expelled from the country by the governmental department of information. Apparently in order to prevent Mr. Winter from challenging the government's order in court, there were threats and innuendos against him and his family from civilians as well as policemen on the night of 17 February.
The move to expel the journalists was countered on 18 February by the Zimbabwe High Court, which extended the journalists' visas until 23 February and ordered your government not to harass the journalists before they go. Despite the binding nature of that court order, it appears that so far the Information Minister and a senior immigration officer both refused to acknowledge the court order.
According to our sources, representatives of your government further announced on 18 February, that rules relating to recognition of the presence of correspondents of foreign-owned newspapers are about to be changed, so that foreign papers would be requested to appoint Zimbabweans as their representatives in the country. There are also reports that your government is considering the introduction of some new form of "accreditation" of journalists, which could amount to state licensing.
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IPI regards discrimination of journalists and media outlets based on citizenship as further steps in the ongoing campaign to silence critical media and as gross violations of everyone's right to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" as guaranteed by Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Therefore, IPI urges Your Excellency to ensure that the court-ordered visa extensions of Mr. Winter and Ms. Sayagues are accepted and respected and that their visas are extended further, should they wish to stay. Moreover, we ask you to take all necessary steps to guarantee that journalists are allowed to report freely on developments in Zimbabwe. This includes the basic human right of media workers to carry out their profession without the fear of being attacked in retribution for doing so.
We thank you for your attention.
Johann P. Fritz Director
International Press Institute (IPI) Spiegelgasse 2/29 A-1010 Vienna Austria Tel: + 43-1-512 90 11 Fax: +43-1-512 90 14 E-mail: ipi@freemedia.at http://www.freemedia.at
