ZIM: WORST PLACE FOR JOURNALISTS TO OPERATE!

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Zimbabwe was one of the worst places in the world to work as a journalist, a prominent local editor said in an article published on World Press Freedom Day Thursday.
Independent journalists have been under attack in Zimbabwe since
repressive press laws were passed shortly after President Robert
Mugabe's disputed re-election in 2002.

The laws have seen at least four newspapers closed down and the
arrest of dozens of reporters.

Last month a former reporter from the state-run ZBC television
was abducted and killed, allegedly for selling freelance
photographs of battered opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

At least four local reporters were beaten and a British
correspondent for Time magazine was arrested and held for several
nights, after police discovered he had been working without a press
card.

"It is an act of enormous bravery, defiance and resilience to
work as an independent journalist, in Zimbabwe today," Bornwell
Chakaodza said in a column for the Financial Gazette.

Chakaodza is a former editor of the state-run Herald newspaper
and also previously edited the private Standard newspaper.

"I dream of the day when we will no longer have words such as
repressive media environment and draconian media laws on our lips,"
he said.

The Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ), an umbrella grouping of
local reporters and media rights groups, said Zimbabwe had recently
witnessed relentless attacks on the media.

"As other democratic countries commemorate World Press Freedom
Day on May 3 by reflecting on the progressive steps they have taken
to entrench media freedom and freedom of expression, Zimbabwe marks
this day in the wake of relentless attacks on the media and
citizens right to free speech," the alliance said in a statement.

A journalist from Botswana, Nomsa Ndlovu, claimed this week she
had been detained and forced to put her fingers on wires connected
to an electrical socket after border police accused her of sneaking
into the country to report for international broadcasters BBC or
CNN.

Writing in Botswana's Mmegi newspaper, Ndlovu claimed she had
only crossed into Zimbabwe, where she herself was educated for 15
years, to pay school fees for an adopted son.

Under Zimbabwe's notorious Access to Information and Protection
of Privacy Act (AIPPA) foreign reporters can only come into
Zimbabwe with prior permission, which is rarely granted by the
state media commission.

Local reporters also need government approval to work, but that
has not been issued to many independent reporters this year.

We must have a free press, wrote Chakaodza. Without that
Zimbabwe will remain incoherent, isolated, ostracized, bleeding and
lost in the long grass.