Human Rights Reporting

Spring 2002 Student Work

The arrest of journalist Peta Thornycroft: How Zimbabwe’s new press laws are threatening freedom of speech

By Tessa Van Staden

Imprisonment and unpleasant working surroundings are nothing new for 57-year-old Peta Thornycroft, a widowed journalist with decades of experience in Southern Africa. This bespectacled grandmother is serious about her job. So serious, in fact, that she denounced her British citizenship a year ago to become a citizen of Zimbabwe – all for the love of journalism.

Controversial legislation, passed in January this year by Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, and the country’s ruling party, Zanu-PF, ruled that all journalists working in the country had to be Zimbabwean citizens. Called the Freedom of Information and Right to Privacy Bill, the law has effectively barred foreign nationals from reporting in the country. But Thornycroft’s change of nationality failed to protect her from the stringent measures she had hoped to avoid. On a late Wednesday afternoon in March this year, two days before Good Friday, Mrs. Thornycroft became the first journalist to be arrested in Zimbabwe for allegedly violating the country’s new media law.

“I was having tea, at a café, and within a couple minutes five men had surrounded my table. They demanded that I go with them. At first I refused, but then when I saw their Zimbabwe public police ID cards,” Thornycroft explained on a crackling telephone line from her Harare home. A correspondent for the British Daily Telegraph, and two South African newspapers, Thornycroft had traveled four hours southeast from Harare to the town of Chimanimani, to investigate reports of reprisal violence by ruling party militants.

The Bill under which Thornycroft was charged was one of three controversial bills that Robert Mugabe’s government passed in February this year, a month before the country’s presidential elections.

The Freedom of Information and Right to Privacy Bill allowed for the creation of a statutory media commission, which requires all journalists to apply for a one-year renewable license to be allowed to work. The catch, however, is that licenses will only be awarded if a stringent set of requirements are met. Additionally, a journalist’s license can be revoked at any time if the government feels he or she has breached a particular code of conduct. Those found guilty of an offence will face a fine of more than $1,500 or two years’ imprisonment. The bill includes other stipulations e.g. that all journalists must be Zimbabweans and that it is an offence to “spread rumors or falsehoods that cause alarm and despondency in the guise of authentic reports”.

Thornycroft said the Chimanimani story was all the more interesting because the local MP was a white farmer, who also happened to be a member of the country’s opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and popular with the locals. After Zimbabwe’s troubled presidential elections in March, with reports of widespread vote rigging and intimidation, some Zanu-PF thugs were allegedly evicting MDC-supporters from their homes in the area. “This was a peculiar case, so I pitched the idea to the Telegraph, and went,” explained Thornycroft. “After chatting to some people I stopped for tea, at which point the police cornered me, but I’d done no real reporting by then.”

At first Thornycroft was irritated. There had been no other arrests, and while she admitted that she was not sure what was going to happen, she found the interruption counter-productive. She hoped that it would all be over relatively quickly. “We got in a car and at one point I remember asking whether I could make a call. The men agreed. Fortunately my cell had reception! So I phoned a friend in Harare, and asked him to phone my lawyer, as well as the Daily Telegraph.”

But Thornycroft would be held for days. At 11p.m. that Wednesday evening she was taken to a charge office, next to a police station, in Harare. Her captors refused to believe that she was a journalist. In stead, she was told she would be charged under the Public Order and Security Act that, among other things, make it “illegal to undermine the authority of the president”. Thornycroft concedes that she became worried at this point. “Some friends came to see me, as result of my phone call. I realized it was serious when a Zanu-PF friend arrived and told me there was nothing he could do to help me.”

After being charged Thornycroft was stripped, given basic prisoner’s garb and lead into a cell behind the charge office. “It was awful. There were three filthy blankets. I remember being very cold. Some of it was surreal – they were bored, I was bored.” Thornycroft spent the Thursday locked up. On Good Friday she was transferred to the town of Mutter, and was handed-over to the local police there.

According to the law the police could only hold prisoners for 48 hours without formal charges, except on a public holiday. “It was Good Friday. Then I knew I was in for a couple of days at least,” Thornycroft said, her voice sounding matter-of-fact about it all. Over the weekend the Zimbabwean government changed its charges against her.

By Saturday Thornycroft was charged under the Freedom of Information and Right to Privacy Bill, and was told that she was accused of “pretending to be a journalist.” Media groups and independent journalists have denounced the passage of legislation, and have expressed their concern, particularly as the legislation is expected to place severe restrictions on press freedom. “Journalists can be arrested for almost anything,” said Rashweat Mukundo, a senior research officer at the Zimbabwe branch of the Media Institute of Southern Africa. “These new laws are unconstitutional and infringe upon the rights of journalists – both as professionals and individuals. In fact, we feel these laws have been created to corner specific journalists.’

The Zimbabwean government has rejected widespread criticism of the new media law. Although Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was not available for an interview, an assistant, who gave only a first name of Mpule, said the laws never intended to stifle dissent. In an interview wit the BBC, Mr. Chinamasa said international condemnation of the legislation was part of a campaign to destabilize the government of President Mugabe. Meanwhile the European Union, Britain, and the United States have strongly condemned the legislation passed by Zimbabwe’s government.

Robert Mugabe swept into power in 1980 elections has was hailed the liberator of Zimbabwe. Today, however, he finds himself the target of sanctions because of his autocratic style and his violent crackdown on dissent. The former guerilla leader now often uses rhetoric reminiscent of the 1970’s liberation war, and some of his more militant supporters have spearheaded a brutal campaign targeting supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC. According to Amnesty International, more than 100 people have died since violence began in 2000, and at least 42,000 have been displaced, while thousands more have been tortured or intimidated.

Born in 1924 at Kutama Mission, northwest of Harare, Mugabe qualified as a teacher at age 17. He first entered politics when he enrolled at Fort Hare University in South Africa, where he met many of southern Africa’s future leaders. As a member of various nationalist parties, which were banned by Rhodesian leader Ian Smith’s white-minority government, Mugabe was detained with others in 1964, and spent the next decade in prison. In 1974 he left for Mozambique, from where his banned party, ZANU, launched attacks on then-Rhodesia. Economic sanctions and war forced Smith into negotiations with Mugabe.

Although the former teacher announced a policy of reconciliation with the country’s white minority, most left after Mugabe’s rise to power. Today, about 40,000 whites (less than 1 percent of the population) remain. Mugabe has been accused of crushing dissent among the minority Ndebele people. His North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade allegedly massacred about 20,000 so-called “dissidents”. In October last year, Mugabe declared an end to market reforms, and announced a return to socialism.

Peta Thornycroft was released on Sunday March 31st, at about 10p.m. This was the result of combined efforts by her employers, their lawyers and increased media pressure on the government. A Zimbabwean High Court judge, Mohammed Adam, had ordered police to free Thornycroft because there was “no reason” for her continued detention. The auburn-haired hack says she was lucky, and she knows it. “I’m a woman, I had a working phone with me. I love working for the Telegraph. At least they can pay my legal fees – what about the journalists who don’t have that?” Besides a torn ligament and lice bites, the grandmother had no other injuries.

But Thornycroft says she is the exception. “Some colleagues have had their jaws cracked, or their skulls fractured. Look, I don’t want to be some sort of symbol,” she explained, “In fact, I’ve always been careful NOT be arrested. Any sense of heroism will be cured after one night in a Zimbabwe jail.” Mrs. Thornycroft has joined with other foreign correspondents to challenge the Zimbabwe government head-on.

The country’s Foreign Correspondents Association has filed papers with the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the laws.

MISA’s Mukundo admits that journalists in the country face a bleak scenario. “This is not the best environment for journalists, especially those working for independent organizations. Some media houses have been bombed, journalists have been arrested… even readers are not spared,” sighed the researcher despondently during one long-distance telephonic interview. “At times it is very frustrating. It’s the one country that needs coverage, that needs its stories to be told. MISA has set up a media defense fund, to help pay for journalists’ legal fees when they’re involved in the litigation process.”

Thornycroft agrees that readers, too, suffer. “If people travel outside the urban areas and they happen to have an copy of one of the independently-produced publications with them they hide it under their seats, or inside handbags, for fear of being attacked, physically.”

Meanwhile Iden Wetherell, the editor of the Zimbabwean Independent, has warned that the media bill – no matter how draconian – should not divert attention from other serious issues. “Zimbabwe faces a terrible food shortage, compounded by lingering drought. The economy is floundering, and that’s only making matters worse.”

In addition, the government passed two other repressive laws in March. One gives the police sweeping new powers, while the other has changed electoral regulations governing voter registration.

Peta Thornycroft has returned to her home in Harare, and continues to report. Journalists who have not yet been issued with a license have a window period until June 15th by which date they have to leave the country if they have not yet been afforded the proper accreditation by the government.

Thornycroft says she can’t imagine leaving, but considering her arrest accedes that it is not likely that she will be given a license. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t think. I can’t picture a situation where I could not practice as a journalist.”

The state of Zimbabwe’s media has received much attention in the local press. Mugabe in March unveiled plans for a “patriotic” national news service, and has promised to re-launch the country’s debt-ridden national news agency, Zania, to “protect Zimbabwe’s identity and national point of view”.

Yet the circulation of one state controlled daily, The Herald, has dropped from 130,000 to 70,000 a morning. At the same time, the independently owned Daily News has been constrained from expanding its 90,000 circulation because of printing problems after anonymous attacks on the paper’s premises. “This is proof,” said Iden Wetherell, “that Zimbabweans are hungry for accurate information.”

Thornycroft says if she remains in the country, which she plans to, she will have to report on topics including starvation, kidnappings and the government’s campaign against the media, which she predicts will only get worse.

“This is what I want to do, though,” admitted Thornycroft, “I’m not a suburban housewife in England, I’m a journalist, in Zimbabwe, and these are the issues the world needs to know about.”

Back to 2002 Index