His Excellency President Robert Mugabe
Office of the President
Causeway, Harare
Zimbabwe

Fax: + 263 4 728 799 / 708 820 / 734 644

Vienna, 12 June 2002

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, leading journalists and media executives, condemns in the strongest possible terms the decision to place Andrew Meldrum of the Guardian newspaper on trial on 12 June.

According to information placed before IPI, Andrew Meldrum, a United States citizen who has lived in Zimbabwe for 21 years and holds a permanent residency permit, will appear before the courts on 12 June to answer charges of publishing a false news story. The charges have been made out under the newly enacted Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which is widely perceived as a government endorsed charter to suppress the media. Under the law, journalists face a heavy fine or a maximum of two years’ imprisonment for “abuse of journalistic privilege” including publishing “falsehoods”.

Along with two other journalists, Meldrum is accused of publishing a false story alleging that Zanu-PF supporters decapitated a woman in a rural district of Zimbabwe. The story was first published in the independent Daily News. A journalist for the Daily News, Lloyd Mudiwa, is to stand trial on the same charges on 20 June while the newspaper’s editor, Geoff Nyarota, has not yet been informed of his own trial date.

Although the Daily News was quick to accept that the incident did not occur and promptly apologised, the government has accused the newspaper of spearheading a Western inspired attempt to discredit both President Robert Mugabe and the country. As a result, the government has pursued a vigorous campaign to prosecute those journalists involved.

The decision to prosecute has led to criticism from a number of sources. Commenting on the case at a press conference on 11 June, U.S. state department spokesperson Richard Boucher said, “We strongly believe that the media must be free to report the news and express opinions. Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are internationally recognised human rights”. Meldrum’s lawyer, when speaking to Reuters, alluded to the continuing crackdown on independent journalists when she said, “[this is] a law which is selectively applied against one group of journalists.”

IPI strongly condemns the decision to prosecute Meldrum under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It is the considered opinion of IPI that this law is profoundly flawed and has been drafted with the sole intention of suppressing and hindering the work of the independent media. The right of freedom of speech is a cornerstone of democracy and the attempt by Your Excellency’s government to penalise those who practice it undermines the notion that fundamental human rights exist in Zimbabwe.

With regard to the use of the criminal law, IPI believes that this should be universal in its application and readily understandable. In this present case, the law appears extremely vague and is liable to cause confusion; furthermore, it would appear to be entirely aimed at only one sector of society, namely independent journalists working in Zimbabwe. An additional concern revolves around the intent of the law.

An important element of criminal law is that the law should seek to protect society, however, in this present case, IPI is at a loss as to why the Zimbabwean government should feel it necessary to protect its citizens from the publication of so-called “falsehoods”. Inside Zimbabwe, there are other more suitable methods of addressing possible “falsehoods”, including civil defamation actions and the complaint procedures within the newspapers themselves. Indeed, such civil actions and procedures would be available to the individuals who felt they had actually suffered because of the so-called “falsehood”.

The peculiarity of this present law is that the government should wish to circumvent these procedures by taking upon itself the role of “moral guardian”. Because of this, IPI has been forced to conclude that the sole reason for enacting such a law is that the government of Zimbabwe wishes to suppress the independent media.

In view of the above, IPI calls upon Your Excellency to halt the current trial of Andrew Meldrum and to remove the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act from the statute books.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director

Background note:
Zimbabwe was placed on the IPI Watch List on 20 October 2001. In its press release IPI said, “[It] is deeply concerned at attempts to extinguish press freedom in the country against a background of government support for this activity and a reluctance to prosecute offenders, restrictions imposed, or contemplated, by the government on the media, and the breakdown of the rule of law.”