[DEBATE] : Press release from OSI: Zimbabwe Cracks Down On Independent Radio Station

[Firoze Manji]

Zimbabwe Cracks Down On Independent Radio Station
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Six board members may face prison

For Immediate Release
Contact: Sarah Miller-Davenport
Tel.: + 1-212-548-0378
mailto:sdavenport at sorosny.org


NEW YORK, February 1  In an attempt to silence one of Zim-
babwe’s last independent news outlets, six board members of the
Harare-based Voice of the People radio station were charged last
week with broadcasting without a license. They could face up to
two years in jail.

The charges came after police raided the Harare home of one of
the board members, Arthur Tsunga, and kidnapped two of his
household staff. The two were detained without charge for four
days in an effort to coerce the executive director of VOP, John
Masuku to turn himself into the police. Masuku was charged with
broadcasting without a license on December 23.

The board members David Masunda, Isabella Matambanadzo, Milli-
cent Phiri, Lawrence Chibwe, Nhlahla Ngwenya and Tsunga are
scheduled to appear in court in Harare on February 10. They will
be represented by Beatrice Mtetwa, a renowned Zimbabwean human
rights lawyer.

The Voice of the People is one of a handful of independent news
outlets in Zimbabwe, where the government exercises near-total
control over the media. “Such a brazen assault on media freedom
shows the bankruptcy of the Mugabe regime,” said Tawanda Muta-
sah, director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Af-
rica, part of the Soros foundations network. One of the board
members facing charges, Isabella Matambanadzo, is OSISA’s coor-
dinator for Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean government, long hostile to its critics, appears
to be stepping up its campaign to strangle civil society and
tighten control over human rights groups. In a particularly
troubling development, on January 26, two days VOP board members
were charged with violating broadcasting laws, a man claiming to
work for the Zimbabwe Military Intelligence Corps visited the
offices of Arthur Tsunga and said that he had orders to assassi-
nate him. Tsunga, who is the executive director of Zimbabwe Law-
yers for Human Rights, was not present at the time.

The government claims that the Voice of the People has violated
a 2001 broadcasting law intended to stifle any criticism of
President Robert Mugabe’s administration, believed by rights
groups to be one of the most repressive in the world. In fact,
the Voice of the People does not broadcast out of Zimbabwe, but
via Radio Netherlands in Madagascar.

The charges are the latest in a series of government attacks on
the Voice of the People, whose equipment and files were seized
in a government raid on its offices on December 15. Several VOP
reporters were arrested during the raid and released without
charge after four days in detention.

“Faced with such repression, and ever-diminishing space for dis-
sent, it is all the more important to defend one of the few re-
maining independent voices,” said Mutasah.

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The Open Society Institute, a private operating and grantmaking
foundation, works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies
whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve
its mission, OSI seeks to shape public policies that assure
greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and
safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, OSI implements a
range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public
health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI builds al-
liances across borders and continents on issues such as corrup-
tion and freedom of information. OSI places high priority on
protecting and improving the lives of marginalized people and
communities. OSI works in over 60 countries in Europe, Asia, Af-
rica, and Latin America.