His Excellency President Robert Mugabe
Office of the President
Causeway, Harare
Zimbabwe
Fax: (+ 263 4) 728 799 / 708 820 / 734 644
Vienna, 18 February 2005
Your Excellency,
The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, journalists and media executives, condemns the intimidation and harassment by the Zimbabwean authorities that has led to a foreign journalist fleeing to South Africa.
According to information provided to IPI, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) correspondent for Zimbabwe, Jan Raath, has been forced to leave the country after considerable pressure from the police and out of fear he would be arrested.
On 14 January, eight policemen and two government officials raided the offices of Raath where he worked with a number of other foreign journalists. Over a period of two days, police carried out an intensive search of the offices without the official documentation proving they had legal authorization to carry out the search.
Raath, who also writes for the (London) Times, was questioned along with three other journalists, Angus Shaw of Associated Press, Brian Latham of Bloomberg economic news, and freelance photographer Tsvangirai Mukwazhi, about spying allegations, as well as accusations that the journalists were practicing their profession illegally and using unauthorized communications equipment.
The questioning took place after two teams of police arrived separately at the news offices. Police claimed there had been a “tip off” about spying activities. Prior to his being questioned, Raath said that at around 2:30 p.m. (local time) two men in a car had tried to force their way past the gate in front of his residence.
With regard to the behaviour of the authorities, IPI believes that it is nothing but a government-inspired attempt to suppress foreign media in the lead-up to the 31 March parliamentary elections.
The actions of the police appear calculated to apply the maximum amount of pressure on journalists in the hope that some would succumb to the intimidation and leave the country. Such a view is supported by the failure of the police to provide the necessary documentation when undertaking the search and the nature of their accusations, which are so widely drawn as to allow the police to question the journalists on almost any subject.
IPI would remind the Zimbabwean government that they have a duty to encourage an open and free media environment that supports the free flow of information. This includes the right of journalists to freely practice their profession without fear of harassment or intimidation. As on so many other occasions, the failure of the Zimbabwean government to uphold this fundamental principle is indicative of the contempt it holds for any journalist or media organisation willing to criticise its actions.
As a consequence, by virtue of the actions against Raath and the many other foreign journalists who have been forced to leave the country, as well as by its closure of news organisations under a repressive media law, the government has decimated the media profession in Zimbabwe.
With this in mind, IPI calls on the Zimbabwean government to halt its cynical and ongoing predations of the media and to follow the principle laid down in Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and freedom of expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference.”
We thank you for your attention.
Yours sincerely,
Johann P. Fritz
Director
Note: Zimbabwe was placed on the IPI Watch List on 20 October 2001. In a press release dated 13 September 2003 IPI said: “In Zimbabwe the enforced closure of the Daily News is yet another example of the extraordinary measures taken by the government to silence the independent media.”
