ZIMBABWE MEDIA LAWS INTRODUCED PRIOR TO MARCH ELECTIONS
January 22nd 2008 08:29
ZeeNews reports that President Robert Mugabe has signed changes to Zimbabwe's media laws, which hopefully will end that country’s notoriously restrictive media controls.
The government controlled Herald newspaper reported that the new laws had been negotiated with the opposition late last year to come into effect before the March presidential and parliamentary elections.
The amendments negotiated in South Africa-mediated talks between the ruling party and opposition were rushed through Parliament at the end of 2007.
The opposition has given a muted welcome to the amendments.
Earlier last week the state media regulator Media and Information Commission asked the banned newspaper The Daily News to reapply for state registration. The Daily News was banned in 2003, when it had been Zimbabwe’s most widely circulated newspaper.
The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act signed into law by Mugabe in 2004 and enforced by the Media and Information Commission made practicing journalism without a license a crime. All journalists, Zimbabwean and foreign, and all media organizations had to obtain official accreditation, and many western news organisations, including the BBC, have been effectively prevented from working in Zimbabwe.
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