HistoryMatters

New York, June 23, 2008—Journalists in Zimbabwe have faced the harshest press crackdown in memory as they’ve tried to report on a brutally violent presidential runoff campaign, veteran reporters told the Committee to Protect Journalists in a report released today, Bad to Worse in Zimbabwe.

Embattled President Robert Mugabe and his administration have used obsolete laws, trumped-up charges and retaliatory measures to detain at least 15 journalists, intimidate sources, and obstruct independent news coverage, the report finds. “This is the worst time for journalists in Zimbabwe’s history,” exiled Zimbabwean reporter Geoff Hill told CPJ. On Sunday, opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) withdrew from a runoff scheduled for Friday, saying he could not ask supporters to cast a ballot when “that vote could cost them their lives.”

Tom Rhodes, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, traveled to South Africa and its border area with Zimbabwe to interview local and foreign journalists covering the crisis. He writes that all types of media workers have been targeted with attack and harassment, and that authorities have tightened their hold on state media as well. Reporting from the country’s rural areas has become exceptionally difficult because of violence by pro-government militants. Sources in the countryside asked the Daily Telegraph’s Peta Thornycroft, for example, not to come to the region because it would be too dangerous for both her and them, she says in the report.

Despite the intimidation and threats facing the independent press, citizen journalists are volunteering to help gather the news, and the South African-printed weekly The Zimbabwean recently broke a record by selling more than 200,000 copies.

CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit CPJ Press Freedom Online.