The Sunday News
Lawson Mabhena News Editor
THE disruption of the official 2014 World Press Freedom Day commemoration in Harare yesterday by the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) was unconstitutional, opaque, irrational and without constructive justification, a Cabinet minister has said.
Journalists were expected to hold a solidarity march from Harare’s Chinhoyi Street to Africa Unity Square but were dispersed by anti-riot police in a last-minute cancellation which Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo described as the use of force for its own sake.
Officer Commanding Police (Harare District), Chief Superintendent Newbert Saunyama said earlier approval of the event had been withdrawn due to “cropping up of other events of national interest and our police officers will be committed to such events”.
In a strongly-worded Press statement yesterday evening, Prof Moyo said the decision to cancel the event was disappointing “as it is manifestly neither in the public nor national interest”.
“It should be placed on the record that the knee-jerk propensity to always and everywhere use or show force for its own sake is not revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination. In point of fact, that propensity can be quite reactionary and even subversive. The use or show of force should always and everywhere have a transparent and constitutionally and rationally justifiable purpose,” Prof Moyo said.
“Otherwise it should be said that the use or show of force does not inherently or by itself inspire any national confidence. While the use or show of force may be intended to instil fear or to display power, there’s more than enough experience to show that the unintended consequence of methods that gratuitously seek to instil fear or to display power can be very serious contempt. In any case, there’s no virtue or gain in fear. That is why it is far better to always seek to instil hope than to induce fear through the use or show of force. Hope is better than fear.”
Prof Moyo said the commemoration was in line with the country’s obligations as a state party to the United Nations and Section 61(2) of Zimbabwe’s new Constitution which provides that: “every person is entitled to freedom of the media, which freedom includes protection of the confidentiality of journalists’ sources of information”.
“What is important to understand by all stakeholders, especially ZRP, is that, with the advent of the new Constitution which came into full effect upon the inauguration of His Excellency President Robert Mugabe on 22 August 2013, freedom of the media in Zimbabwe is now a constitutional matter and nobody has the right or option to ignore this fundamental reality of our jurisprudence.
“In the same vein, and on this World Press Freedom day, it is propitious for those of us in public service, including ZRP, to understand that serving the public is not a one-way street but a multiple-lane avenue whose traverse requires those who are in the public service to co-operate and indeed respect those whom they serve and vice versa. Any holier than thou attitude which eschews any and all accountability is simply unacceptable and therefore intolerable as it is inconsistent not only with our new constitutional dispensation but also the values and ideals of our heroic liberation struggle,” Prof Moyo said.
World Press Freedom Day is set aside to celebrate the fundamental principles of Press Freedom and to honour journalists who lost their lives in the course of duty.
Prof Moyo said his ministry would liaise with the local UNESCO office to reschedule the unduly cancelled event and thanked all those that worked hard in preparing for the official commemoration of World Press Freedom Day.
“While the letter of the kind of accountable public service that our nation deserves might be blurred by the cancelled event, the spirit of collective responsibility must forever remain as the beacon of a nationally grounded media which claims its constitutional rights not for self-indulgent or other sinister purposes but for the country’s prosperity,” said Prof Moyo.
This year’s celebrations are being held under the theme: “Media Freedom for a Better Future: Shaping the Post-2015 Development Agenda.”
