How Zimbabwe is suppressing journalism
Following arrests and draconian legislation, editors are self-censoring to protect their organisations
The Zimbabwean government under President Emmerson Mnangagwa has introduced legislation to make it harder to report on corruption and hold the state accountable. Illustration: Lisa Nelson
Journalism is increasingly treated as a crime in Zimbabwe.
State surveillance, arrests and detentions have created a climate of fear in newsrooms, and a new law will bring investigative journalism under direct state control. The effect is chilling: editors are self-censoring to protect their organisations. This is likely to make donor funding, vital to sustaining journalism, much more difficult to secure.
This year, the Zimbabwean government has arrested and charged several high-profile journalists, including the editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, Faith Zaba, head of Heart and Soul Television, Blessed Mhlanga, as well as Alpha Media Holdings editor-in-chief, Kholwani Nyathi.
Police arrested Mhlanga after his interview with Zanu PF member and war veteran, Blessed Geza, who accused Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa of corruption and urged him to step down. Mhlanga spent 72 days in pretrial detention, where he was ill-treated by the police. The trial is ongoing.
In July, the Mnangagwa administration arrested Zaba on “insult” charges for publishing a satirical political column that mocked Mnangagwa’s tenure as the chair of the Southern African Development Community. Accused of undermining the authority of or insulting the country’s president, Zaba was detained for three nights despite being ill and having handed herself over. Her arrest attracted widespread condemnation by journalists and Amnesty International.
Nyathi, the editor-in-chief of Zimbabwe’s largest private media company, Alpha Media Holdings, which runs the Zimbabwe Independent and HSTV, was charged jointly with Zaba. The pair’s trial begins on 31 October in Harare.
Last year, The NewsHawks was forced to drop an investigation into housing corruption in the military after pressure from the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and the government. Amid increased surveillance, the journalist investigating the matter had to relocate his family. The army and Mnangagwa’s spokesperson, George Charamba, admitted a military investigation was underway, but warned the media house not to report on the issue, as it was a matter of national security.
The army said it would issue a public statement once its investigation was complete, but it has yet to do so.
Zimbabwe’s Bill of Rights may guarantee media freedom, but journalists face the risk of arrest, prosecution, or other forms of harassment. Chris Mhike, a lawyer who is representing Zaba, Geza and AM Holdings, says this is because Zimbabwe has “too many statutes” that are at odds with the Constitution, including several provisions in the Criminal Law Code which pose a serious threat to press freedom. For example, a number of people have been prosecuted for allegedly undermining authority or insulting the president.
Mhike adds: “A raft of other media laws has worsened the situation by maintaining in our operating environment, a significant degree of fear and the apprehension of getting into trouble with the law. Even those journalists who have yet to fall victim to the harshness of our media laws often censor themselves as a measure of avoiding law-related problems.”
The Interception of Communication Act is another tool the state uses for its media crackdown. It gives state security agencies broad powers to intercept phone calls and online communication. Knowing the state can easily monitor their calls, many journalists stop pursuing stories as they fear arrest.
“The process of challenging the validity of these laws is laborious and prohibitively expensive,” says Mhike, who adds that journalists are often subjected to prolonged pre-trial detention. THIS was the case with Mhlanga and Hopewell Chin’ono.
“This usually serves as a reminder to all other journalists that criticism of the status quo, or any association with dissenters, can easily seriously harm the messenger [the journalist],” he said.
Other laws used to restrict journalism include the Cybersecurity and Data Protection Act (2021), which is meant to regulate data and online crime. It allows authorities to get subscriber data from telecom companies with little oversight. It also criminalises the sharing of any information deemed to be “false”, which can be used to criminalise routine reporting.
The Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Act (2023) goes further, making it a crime to “wilfully injure the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe”, which is broad enough to apply to critical journalism.
Recent changes to the Private Voluntary Organisation (PVO) Act will introduce a new regime for the way non-profit journalism must operate. Public interest and watchdog media outfits in Zimbabwe operate as non-profit organisations and receive grant funding from international partners. They must now register as PVOs in accordance with strict regulations, or face criminal prosecution.
To get registered as a PVO, the state must first interview and approve an organisation’s board members. If any PVO’s work is deemed not to be in the national interest, the state can replace board members, seize the company’s assets or simply shut it down.
“That situation naturally leads to the loss of the autonomy that many press freedom advocacy groups and not-for-profit watchdog journalism media organisations previously enjoyed. Dozens of freelance journalists who used to rely on the resources of independent pro-media Trusts suddenly find themselves heavily constrained under the new legislative framework,” Mhike says.
Njabulo Ncube, the coordinator of the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum (ZINEF), says media civil society organisations are being forced to register and submit CVs of their board members.
“CVs contain intimate and private, personal details which allow authorities to have access to emails and residential addresses,” he says. “[The PVO Act] allows the state to do surveillance on citizens, which is unhealthy in a democracy.”
Zimbabwe Union of Journalists secretary general Perfect Hlongwane says regulatory constraints are hindering investigative journalism, particularly the exposure of corruption.
“The licensing and accreditation of journalists is also another way they use to control journalists,” Hlongwane says, adding that journalists are already self-censoring.
Despite a 2014 Constitutional Court ruling that invalidated criminal defamation, journalists continue to face prosecution under broadly framed “false news” clauses for “communicating falsehoods” or inciting public violence, as was the case with Chin’ono in 2020.
Nigel Nyamutunbu, coordinator of the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe, an alliance of media support organisations, says although Zimbabwe has some progressive laws, including the recognition of freedom of expression or media freedom, it has many clawback clauses which are being used to criminalise journalism.
“We have structural issues of a political nature that need to be addressed and that point to a shrinking space and regression in the democratic discourse of the country,” says Nyamutunbu.
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