Zimbabwe Cops Defy Court Over Newspaper

AP via The Las Vegas Sun ^ | September 19, 2003 | Angus Shaw

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Military police barred journalists from entering their offices Friday, defying a court order to allow the country's only independent daily newspaper to resume publishing.

Police shut down the Daily News a week ago for failing to register under the strict media laws imposed by President Robert Mugabe's government. Police evicted the staff, removed the newspaper's computers and occupied its offices and printing plant.

On Thursday, High Court Judge Younis Omerjee ordered police to halt their operation.

But police prevented the newspaper's staff from returning to work Friday. Newspaper bosses had pledged to publish an eight-page newspaper but employees remained on the sidewalk outside the building, unable to work.

"Police are still denying us access. What they are doing is illegal in terms of the court order," said Sam Sipepa Nkomo, chief executive of the Associated Newspapers group, the paper's owners.

Lawyers for the newspaper group were to file contempt of court papers against police, he said.

State attorneys, meanwhile, planned to appeal Thursday's order by High Court Judge Younis Omerjee, state radio reported.

In Thursday's High Court hearing, Adrian de Bourbon, an attorney for the Daily News, told Omerjee the paper was entitled to reopen under the media laws until its registration application with the state media commission was completed. The owners applied for registration Monday.

Last year, Daily News executives refused to apply for the paper's accreditation, saying the new media laws would stifle independent and foreign journalists and news organizations.

The paper in July challenged the media laws as unconstitutional, leading to last week's Supreme Court ruling.

Since its launch in 1999, the Daily News has given a voice to critics of Mugabe's 23-year rule.

In January 2001, the Daily News presses were destroyed in a bomb attack hours after Information Minister Jonathan Moyo described the paper as "a threat to national security which had to be silenced."

The state controls the country's two other daily newspapers and lone television and radio station.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[Ohioan]

"Zimbabwe" is one of the noteworthy achievements of the efforts by our State Department to impose "Democracy" on other peoples. Before we gave the British Socialists the support they needed to strangle Rhodesia, the land was a veritable paradise; its leadership probably having as high or higher a level of intelligence than that of any other country, and basically holding settler values remarkably similar to those of the Founding Fathers.

"Democracy" sure does make sense for countries with diverse populations, does it not?

But enough of the sarcasm. This is one more example of the cruel and destructive path that Leftist theorists have wrought across the earth.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Even if Mugabe is ousted, and honorable people come to power, it would take decades for Zimbabwe to rebuild. I wonder how long the current citizens can hold on. So much has already been lost.

[ChewedGum]

So very sad. Quagmire even.

Gum

[Ohioan]

I do not believe that more than a fourth of the Rhodesians--i.e. the Settler Class of English, Scots, Irish & Afrikaner lineage, still remain in the country. While there is the old adage that "once you drink from the waters of the Zambezi, you always return," I would not count on it now. There are some very, very bitter people, scattered from Andorra to Australia, who will not likely forget what the "Liberals" of the World did to them.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Pan_Yans Wife]

And they shouldn't forget. From a distance we see the problems in Zimbabwe, Cuba, Iraq, etc... and comment on the evils of these dictatorships. But, those that suffer under these regimes know the intimate and horrifying details of the betrayal, suffering, and death.

[RedMonqey]

The situation in Zim and the way the "natives" are treating the "outsiders" makes the pessimist inside me go mad....Methinks with the situation in "Mexifornia" and the "For the race,everything, outside the race, nothing" MeCha crowd, I should start my "stockpiles" earlier than planned.

Does Mad Max ring a Bell?