Own Correspondent
HARARE – Journalists are under siege in Zimbabwe, two unions said on Friday as they demanded President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s intervention.
The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) said at least six journalists had been detained at checkpoints manned by police and military officers since March 30, when a 21-day lockdown to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus came into effect.
On Friday, Mary Taruvinga, a journalist working for New Zimbabwe.com was hauled off a vehicle and held for close to an hour, despite producing a press card.
“The levels of harassment of journalists has reached epidemic levels,” ZUJ secretary Foster Dongozi said.
“In some discussions, we are wondering if it is a reflection of contradictions within government. Questions are now being asked if the harassment is not part of a bigger plan by some elements within the security establishment to sabotage Mnangagwa by attacking the media, knowing well that such issues would attract international attention and condemnation. Remember, when Mnangagwa seized power in 2017 with the help pf the military, police were not quite onboard.”
Njabulo Ncube, the coordinator of the Zimbabwe Editors Forum, said President Mnangagwa should issue a specific instruction to the security services to leave journalists to do their work, warning that any curtailments were self-defeating.
“ZINEF is appealing to the government to specifically put out a public directive to the security agencies, particularly the police and the military, reminding them that the media is an essential service in the national effort to contain the virus outbreak,” Ncube said.
“Failure to pronounce on this in clear terms will result in lack of useful, reliable and truthful information which is not in the national interest.”
Ncube said they had received several reports of journalists being unnecessarily detained, and some being made to toyi-toyi at checkpoints.
“This is a disservice in the fight against the spread of coronavirus,” Ncube said. “The media is just like doctors, nurses and other support staff in the midst of a pandemic – a vital instrument through which the public is kept informed, and the government should ensure journalists have unfettered movement across the country.”
Last week, Dongozi said former ZUJ president Matthew Takaona was detained by police in Masvingo and accused of “kungombeyambeya” – a Shona word which means driving around aimlessly.
On March 30, the first day of the lockdown, police arrested and later released Gweru-based freelance journalist Kudzanai Musengi for possessing a 2019 press card. The information ministry intervened in that incident and explained that journalists were yet to be issued with press cards for 2020, owing to delays by the Zimbabwe Media Commission in gazetting new fees.
NewsDay and Voice of America correspondent Nunurai Jena, 55, was stopped at a police checkpoint in Chinhoyi and initially accused of using an expired press card, before the officers charged him with disorderly conduct for insisting on his rights.
On Friday, Zenzele Ndebele of the Centre for Innovation and Technology said he was turned away at a police roadblock on Plumtree Road in Bulawayo and told to go home because “no car is allowed to move.”
Freelance journalist Jacob Rukweza wrote on Twitter: “Today, overzealous military and state police at traffic checkpoints around Harare were refusing to accept press cards and letters from media houses. I had to make several phone calls. Is media no longer an essential service?”
Taruvinga said she was getting into Harare in a private vehicle when soldiers and police manning a roadblock at the corner of Samora Machel and Fourth Street told her to return home.
“I couldn’t comply with an instruction which I knew had no legal basis and I tried to explain to the two soldiers and a police officer that there were regulations governing the lockdown which permitted journalists to go about their work,” she said.
“I called the police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi, who advised me to wait there. This angered the officers, one saying I must return home, the other saying I must walk back and then a third saying they wanted to hear from government spokesman Nick Mangwana.
“Eventually, Nyathi’s office called and I was allowed through but it was a very humiliating, and yet wholly unnecessary experience.”
Kukurigo
