Media arrests during Tuesday's unity government cabinet meeting test the stability of Zimbabwe's year-old power-sharing arrangement
The journalists were allegedly mistreated and jailed for about three hours while trying to cover a cabinet meeting that was boycotted by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai is currently on a tour of southern African countries and the United Kingdom to brief leaders on why he has withdrawn indefinitely from the unity government. President Mugabe is also out of the country, attending an African Union-sponsored summit on internationally displaced people (IDPs) in the Uganda capital, Kampala.
The director of the Washington, D.C. office of Reporters Without Borders, Clothilde de Coz, says that all signs point to continued rough going for free speech advocates in Zimbabwe’s quest for democracy.
“There is a political battle. And the simple fact that they can’t cover a cabinet meeting is already something that shows that they have to work undercover, and they have to hide what they are doing because they can’t do it publicly,” she said.
Not only has the Mugabe government kept a tight leash on coverage by the local media in Zimbabwe, but during the past year, it also closed down bureaus and offices of several international outlets. RSF’s Clothilde de Coz says there are distinctions in the ways Harare treats the local press and international correspondents.
“Simply foreign media, what they risk is to be expelled, to be kidnapped. And the international community will raise really quickly about their cases. Local journalists are in a worse situation because they are in the country, and they fear all their relatives are also in the country. And so they are not they only one to fear what’s happening,” she points out.
* VoA
