British journalists’ trial
continues
British journalists Julian Simmons and
Toby Harnden, arrested in Zimbabwe for covering the elections without government
accreditation.
Credit: IWPR.
Credit: IWPR.
NORTON - Zimbabwean government prosecutors
are pushing ahead with a criminal trial of two journalists from the London-based
Sunday Telegraph on accreditation charges that could condemn the pair to two
years in prison.
Toby Harnden, the newspaper’s chief foreign
correspondent, and photographer Julian Simmonds who have been jailed since their
arrest on March 31 at a polling station in Norton, appeared in court there on
Wednesday.
Harnden and Simmonds have been charged with working without accreditation under Zimbabwe’s draconian media law, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which requires all journalists in Zimbabwe to register with the government-controlled Media and Information Commission (MIC).
The court was due to hear evidence from an immigration official who stamped their passports at Victoria Falls airport. Their lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa in a telephone interview from Harare told The Zimbabwean that the code stamped in the journalists’ passports was not clear to anyone who is not an immigration official. “They had applied for 14 days and believed they had been granted 14 days,” she said.
During the hearing last week, an immigration official conceded that the coding could be confusing to a lay person.
George Charamba, Zimbabwe’s secretary for information and publicity, told the state-run Herald newspaper last week that the two journalists would be deported. But the trial went ahead and prosecutors invoked their authority to override a magistrate’s decision granting bail to the journalists, Mtetwa said. Commentators believe the government wants to score a point and get the pair convicted before deporting them.
According to state media in Zimbabwe, hundreds of foreign journalists were accredited to cover the elections. However, dozens were also refused accreditation and accused of political bias, including all journalists from the BBC and from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
The arrest has been condemned by human rights bodies.
Meanwhile the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the April 1 arrest and deportation of a correspondent for Sweden’s public broadcaster, Sveriges Television (STV). Fredrik Sperling, who is based in South Africa, was arrested in central Harare and deported, despite having been accredited to cover the elections.
Sperling told CPJ that he was brought to a police station outside Harare on March 30, after filming a large farm expropriated several years ago by the Zimbabwean government and now occupied by a relative of President Robert Mugabe. Initially released, Sperling said, he was later arrested and deported by signed order of MIC Chairman Tafataona Mahoso.
The editors-in-chief of two STV news programs sent a letter protesting Sperling’s deportation to Zimbabwe’s ambassador in Sweden. Sperling is also appealing the government’s decision to brand him a “prohibited immigrant,” which bars his re-entry into Zimbabwe.
Harnden and Simmonds have been charged with working without accreditation under Zimbabwe’s draconian media law, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which requires all journalists in Zimbabwe to register with the government-controlled Media and Information Commission (MIC).
The court was due to hear evidence from an immigration official who stamped their passports at Victoria Falls airport. Their lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa in a telephone interview from Harare told The Zimbabwean that the code stamped in the journalists’ passports was not clear to anyone who is not an immigration official. “They had applied for 14 days and believed they had been granted 14 days,” she said.
During the hearing last week, an immigration official conceded that the coding could be confusing to a lay person.
George Charamba, Zimbabwe’s secretary for information and publicity, told the state-run Herald newspaper last week that the two journalists would be deported. But the trial went ahead and prosecutors invoked their authority to override a magistrate’s decision granting bail to the journalists, Mtetwa said. Commentators believe the government wants to score a point and get the pair convicted before deporting them.
According to state media in Zimbabwe, hundreds of foreign journalists were accredited to cover the elections. However, dozens were also refused accreditation and accused of political bias, including all journalists from the BBC and from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
The arrest has been condemned by human rights bodies.
Meanwhile the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the April 1 arrest and deportation of a correspondent for Sweden’s public broadcaster, Sveriges Television (STV). Fredrik Sperling, who is based in South Africa, was arrested in central Harare and deported, despite having been accredited to cover the elections.
Sperling told CPJ that he was brought to a police station outside Harare on March 30, after filming a large farm expropriated several years ago by the Zimbabwean government and now occupied by a relative of President Robert Mugabe. Initially released, Sperling said, he was later arrested and deported by signed order of MIC Chairman Tafataona Mahoso.
The editors-in-chief of two STV news programs sent a letter protesting Sperling’s deportation to Zimbabwe’s ambassador in Sweden. Sperling is also appealing the government’s decision to brand him a “prohibited immigrant,” which bars his re-entry into Zimbabwe.
