City of Asylum Pittsburgh, and their online magazine Sampsonia Way, are among ICORN and Shahrazad - stories for life's good friends and important allies. We are happy to share an excerpt of this piece written by Elizabeth Hoover, where Miami's ICORN Guest Writer Chenjerai Hove and Brian Chikwava discuss President Robert Mugabe’s ongoing repression of speach in Zimbabwe.
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You Must Face the Consequences
The price of committing journalism in Zimbabwe
By Elizabeth Hoover
Just this month, Zimbabwean police launched a manhunt for an editor accused of publishing a false story during the 2008 elections. Are hopes fading for greater press freedom in the country? Two exiled writers discuss President Robert Mugabe's ongoing repression of speech.
In April 2008, New York Times correspondent Barry Bearak was arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, for the crime of "committing journalism." The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter had been covering the elections, but, when the results weren't what President Robert Mugabe expected, the secret police started rounding up reporters.
Mugabe has kept his grip on power since 1980 with vote-rigging and intimidation. However, in 2008, he found himself in a run-off with opposition candidate. In response, Mugabe deployed militias to beat suspected opposition supporters, kill resisters, and arrest journalists. "Elections can be held in Zimbabwe, as long as Mugabe wins," Bearak explained to Sampsonia Way via e-mail.
Press freedom has been brutally suppressed since 2002, when legislations destroyed the independent newspapers and gave Mugabe control over the media. Knowing how the secret police monitors journalists, Bearak had been careful, but the demands of filing stories daily forced him to work in the open. "Necessity numbed my own caution," he wrote in the New York Times in 2008.
He would spend 72 hours in jail, swatting cockroaches, trying to keep warm, and getting an "insider's perspective" on the archaic and arbitrary justice system. "Mugabe likes to maintain this veneer of legality; the courts can apply the law unless he decides otherwise," Bearak said via e-mail. He secured his freedom with the aid of human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, who has survived multiple beatings by police. According to Bearak, police officer told Mtetwa they wanted her to experience the brutality she protested.
It turned out "journalism" was no longer a crime. "The magistrate considered the charges a bit laughable," Bearak said. After he was released, he fled across the border, but has been unable to return since new charges against him have been concocted. Because of this, he preferred not to comment on the current situation inside the country.
"This exclusion from Zimbabwe is very painful for me," he said. "I am unable to report on a story that I considered then, and continue to consider now, the most compelling in the region."
The elections eventually resulted in a power-sharing deal with Mugabe as president and Tsvangirai as prime minster. Under that agreement, the government pledged media reforms and independent newspapers have resumed publishing. However, Reporters without Borders calls the situation "fragile." After their publications hit the stands, editors and journalists are arrested, threatened, and accused of leaking state secrets. Just three weeks ago, the police issued an arrest warrant and launched a manhunt for the editor of the Zimbabwean, who they accuse of publishing a "false story" in 2008 about the alleged murder of an election official.
