The police in Harare charged six journalists from the Daily News and The Daily News on Sunday on 1 October for practising without accreditation from the Media and Information Commission (MIC). The six journalists are Philemon Bulawayo, Margaret Chinowaita, Kelvin Jakachira, Sydney Saize, George Muzimba and Lawrence Chikuvira.

The crisis facing Zimbabwe continues to eat away at the nation's economic and social fabric. While political party actors debate the possibilities for negotiations, the standard of living for the vast majority of Zimbabweans continues to decline drastically. This update from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition outlines the critical concerns currently facing the Zimbabwean population, and then discusses scenarios for transition and prospects for settlement.

Health authorities in Zimbabwe have confirmed in a statement that 786 people have died of malaria in that country in the nine months to the end of September this year.

Plans by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) to disconnect water services to all towns owing it money could trigger widespread outbreaks of disease, which the health ministry may not have the capacity to control, warned Zimbabwe's Directorate of Disease Prevention and Control. The directorate, part of the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, said there was a danger of diseases spreading to neighbouring countries and blossoming into regional epidemics as people moved from one country to another.

A group formed in London has joined the battle to overturn the silencing of Zimbabwe’s only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, using two weapons: trying to shame the supreme court judges who shut down the paper two weeks ago, and encouraging protests, particularly in the 19 other African members of the 54-nation Commonwealth. "Whether it will work we don’t know. But we are looking at how you put pressure on a government that is not open to peer pressure," said Lindsay Ross, executive director of the Commonwealth Press Union, and an organiser of the Friends of The Daily News.

Zimbabwe's leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), on Tuesday denied that negotiations had resumed with President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party. "This is media speculation. There are no talks in the country and this has been confirmed by Zanu PF," MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said.

The announcement this week by Shangani Hospital in Matabeleland South that it would no longer admit patients, because it ran out of food a fortnight ago, is further evidence of Zimbabwe's deepening economic and humanitarian crises. The hospital, situated in a former commercial farming area, serves an estimated 12,500 newly resettled families.

Zimbabwean police on September 26 charged Francis Mdlongwa, former group Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), with practising as a journalist without official accreditation. He becomes the 10th journalist who worked for The Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday, the ANZ's two news titles shut down by the government on September 12, to be charged under Zimbabwe's tough media law, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), in the past week.

The glaring information vacuum caused by the closure of The Daily News was greatly felt during the first week of its closure, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe. A large section of the public has been left at the mercy of simplistic and partisanship reporting of the government-controlled media.

Police in Zimbabwe this week released a list of 45 Daily News staffers whom they instructed to report to Harare Central Police Station. The list included past and present Daily News employees and journalists.
Related Link:
* Police charge nine Daily News journalists
http://allafrica.com/stories/200309291024.html

The lesson that the world has learnt from Robert Mugabe's rule is that when one cannot improve one's image, one gets rid of all the mirrors. The Mugabe led Zanu-PF government must be counting its gains after the closure of the only privately owned daily newspaper group, the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ). ANZ publishes the Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday.

The ANZ was shut down on Friday 12th September 2003. The previous day, the country's Supreme Court ruled that the newspaper group had to register with the Media & Information Commission (MIC) for its case to be heard in the Supreme Court. ANZ is challenging the constitutionality of sections of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).

Meanwhile, the spectacular failure of the Zanu-PF government in solving the economic, social and political problems affecting Zimbabwe is well documented. Queues for basic commodities are a characteristic feature of every town and city and the cost of goods is sky rocketing - with the official inflation figure pegged at 446.6 percent. For example, a standard loaf of bread costs more than Z$900.00. The minimum wage is pegged at Z$48,000.00 per month. Bank notes are in short supply and the government, through the Reserve Bank, has resorted to printed money in the form of travelers cheques with bank-note security features. Banks are limiting withdrawals to Z$5000.00 per person per day. The country's external debt is estimated at well over US$1,6 billion.

The public is fed with propaganda through state controlled media that the current problems are being caused by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which called for sanctions to be imposed on Zimbabwe. What is not said is that the sanctions are only targeted at 73 Zanu PF officials.

The Zimbabwe dollar rate to the US dollar is Z$5500. This makes a mockery of government's official rate of Z$824 to the US dollar. The food security situation is worsening. Recent estimates from the Food Security Network, a network of non- governmental organisations monitoring the agricultural situation in the country's 58 districts, show that the situation is likely to get worse unless there is intervention from the international donor community.

The health sector is tottering. Government hospitals, the only ones charging affordable fees, are now dying zones for the sick. There are no drugs or equipment. The private sector has taken advantage of this by escalating the costs of medical services to the total exclusion of the working class.

Teachers and lecturers are on strike most of the time. The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) released July examination results in September because of the strike by lecturers. University graduates have to contend with the fact that the unemployment rate is over 70 percent. Youths have been turned into militia - thanks to the National Youth Service programme run by the Ministry of Gender and Employment Creation. The programme is being extended to civil servants, especially teachers.

The Human Rights NGO Forum notes that high levels of human rights violations continue to prevail, some of them consequent on laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). This has been accompanied by the establishment of a culture of impunity presided over by a seemingly partisan police force. State agents have been frequently reported as being perpetrators of human rights violations themselves. There has been continued inter-party violence as a result of political intolerance. Victimization on the basis of political affiliation remains a common phenomenon.

Elections have, since the Parliamentary Elections in June 2000, been accompanied by organized violence and intimidation. The electorate's freedom of choice in electing representatives in all these elections has been heavily constrained by victimisation of potential voters on the basis of their political affiliation. There have been reports of supplying food in exchange for votes and the use of retributive force where voters are deemed not to have voted in the expected manner.

The story of the crisis is told differently in the government controlled media and the privately owned press. The public media prefers to be optimistic. It prefers to sideline the suffering of the majority and trivializes it where it cannot avoid the story. For example, the country's only broadcaster, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), prefers to lead with a story about marketing of the Victoria Falls to the regional and international community as if the recently announced hike in long distance fares (and other basic commodities) is not newsworthy.

The private press would usually give prominence to stories of economic malaise. In the Daily News, Zanu PF propaganda would be given daily rebuttal. In addition, the continuing abuse of human rights in the political and other arena would find its full expression in the paper. That the daily private paper was a thorn in the flesh of politicians has always been evident. Prior to the bombing of the Daily News printing press in 2000, leading government spokesperson and Minister of State for Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet Jonathan Moyo described the paper as “a threat to national security”. The newspaper has been the target of three bombings and has endured the frequent arrest of its editors, journalists and other staff.

AIPPA purports to promote access to information held by public bodies and regulates the media industry in Zimbabwe. Because of AIPPA, ANZ has lost its equipment including all computers and the printing press. Its owners risk being jailed for a period of two years and its closure may simply be a replica of what happened to Joy TV, which ceased operations in June 2002 on legal grounds.

The MIC has 60 days to consider the ANZ application - by which time it may not be commercially viable after losing advertising and sales revenue. The Government blames the Daily News for failing to register with the MIC instead of revisiting the policies it implemented. Such is the repression the Zanu PF Government has so craftily forced through the legislative assembly. In fact, the government's forced closure of the offices and printing press of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) represents the climax of the Zanu-PF led Government campaign to muzzle alternative opinion using all legal instruments at its disposal. This is the first time that a newspaper has been legally banned in Zimbabwe since the mid-1960s, when the former white-minority Rhodesian government outlawed a pro-black nationalist newspaper called The African Daily News.

The Daily News is the latest casualty of AIPPA and government's undemocratic and unjust media policy. Several community newspapers have stopped publishing because of the punitive registration requirements in Statutory Instrument 169C/2002 (Chapter 10:27) of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy (Registration, Accreditation and Levy) Regulations of June 2002. In Midlands alone, five community newspapers, including the Gokwe Times - the only localized news source for the people of Gokwe, stopped publishing after Government announced its intentions to enforce the provisions of AIPPA. In addition, several foreign correspondents have been denied the right to practice in the country using the same regulations. The broadcasting sector is no different. Joy TV ceased operations on legal grounds. No alternative broadcasters have been licensed. Aspiring community broadcasters have been openly told they will not get broadcasting licenses.

The latest event involving the closure of the Daily News has robbed civic society of a platform to communicate their views. It serves as a clear indication to the people of Zimbabwe and the international community that the laws that were hastily crafted under the guise of promoting freedom of expression rights were actually meant to muzzle rather than promote these rights.

* Sizani Weza is Advocacy Officer with the Media Monitoring Project (MMPZ), an independent organisation that monitors media output and information rights developments in Zimbabwe. ([email protected])

* Please send comments on this editorial to

President Robert Mugabe called this week for unity between all Zimbabweans, including the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. But the MDC quickly rejected the rare display of conciliatory rhetoric as "public posturing".

Tertiary education in Zimbabwe was at one time ranked among the best in Africa, but the achievements of the country’s education system are threatened by growing dissatisfaction and underfunding. Thousands of students who completed undergraduate studies at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), the country’s oldest institution for higher learning, failed to graduate last month when lecturers complaining of poor working conditions and low salaries resorted to industrial action.

SC UK is looking for an innovative person to play a key role in our Zimbabwe programme. As Deputy Programme Director you will be responsible for supporting the management and development of the programme, while ensuring that we effectively meet the long and short-term needs of children within agreed frameworks and organisational strategies.

Politically motivated violence in August 2003 largely took the form of inter-party violence surrounding the Urban Council Elections held on 30/31 August 2003. Pre – election reports of political violence were received from Bulawayo, Chegutu, Norton and Gwanda among others, according the latest political violence report from the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.

Send appeals to (Thanks to MISA-Zimbabwe for the contact details):
President Robert Mugabe
Office of the President
Munhumutapa Building
Samora Machel Avenue/ 3rd Street
Harare, Zimbabwe
facsimile: 263-4-708-820

Minister of Information and Publicity
Professor Jonathan Moyo
Office of The President
Munhumutapa Building
Box 777
Causeway
Harare
Phone 00 263 4 706 894, 707 091 –7, 707098

The Chairman
Dr Tafataona Mahoso
Media and Information Commission
P O Box CY 7700
Causeway
Harare
Tel 703 416

The Attorney General
Mr Andrew Chigovera
2ND Floor Corner House
Samora Machel Ave
Box CY 880
Causeway
Harare
Zimbabwe
Phone 00 263 4 77 32 47

Please copy all correspondence to [email protected]
The link below is for a statement from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition on the banning of the Daily News.

On Saturday 25th October a major conference entitled "A decade of freedom - The decade ahead", is hosted by the South African High Commission in London. It celebrates South Africa's 10th anniversary of its first free and democratic elections marking the end of apartheid. As South Africa celebrates and prepares to enter its second decade of freedom, Zimbabwe, its neighbour, is suffering and dying under the oppressive rule of Robert Mugabe. A Mugabe Must Go mass demonstration will mobilise on this day to increase the pressure on the South African government to stop the murderous path of the ZANU-PF regime.

Zimbabwe's health care sector has been badly affected by chronic shortages of essential medical supplies. Last Thursday Bulawayo's major state hospitals announced that they were suspending medical operations for all "non-life threatening" ailments because of a critical shortage of essential drugs.

Zimbabwean civic groups said Monday they plan to meet this week to find alternative means of publishing information following the closure of the country's sole independent daily paper, threatening a boycott of one of the state-run newspapers. President Robert Mugabe's government shut down the Daily News last week on grounds that it was operating without a license, provoking major international condemnation. The paper's subsequent application to register was rejected.

The government’s continued closure and more recently, the seizure of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) equipment using the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) clearly demonstrates the ZANU PF led government’s intolerance of alternative opinion, according to the Media Monitoring Project's latest update.