FREE DAILY EMAIL

The closure of another independent paper in Zimbabwe is seen as the latest blow in a campaign by President Robert Mugabe's ruling party to reshape the media landscape ahead of crucial elections early next year.

The Tribune, a weekly owned by a ruling party lawmaker who criticised Zimbabwe's media laws, was shut down on Thursday, just days after the government moved to tighten control of the internet.

The government said the one-year closure of The Tribune, launched two years ago, was decided after the weekly's publisher failed to notify the state appointed media commission of changes including in its ownership structure and title.

The Tribune, which plans to challenge the decision in court, said the closure signalled "the death of press freedom in Zimbabwe".

"This is the worst assault on press freedom in modern Zimbabwe," said Tribune publisher Kindness Paradza.

"Our belief is that there is a hidden hand behind all this," he said, charging that the media commission was not "only unreasonable but barbaric in an independent and democratic Zimbabwe."

The closure of the Tribune came within months of the closure of the highly critical Daily News and its sister paper, the Daily News on Sunday, early this year.

Zimbabwe's media laws, adopted shortly after Mugabe was re-elected in 2002, require all news organisations to register with the state-appointed commission to be allowed to work in the country.

Close to 20 journalists and other media staff have been arrested, some of them more than once, for allegedly violating media laws since 2002.

The closures, which have left hundreds jobless, is seen as an attempt to silence the free press ahead of parliamentary elections only eight months away.

"The ongoing closure of objective channels of information by the ruling authorities dilutes people's capacity to make informed choices at the ballot box," said the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in a statement.

In an editorial published Friday despite the ban, the Tribune said "we see the move ... as one designed to ensure that no credible voice will be around come voting next year."

Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) is gearing up for the March elections, hoping to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament that will give it a free hand to change the constitution.

Brian Kagoro of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a rights lobby group, said Zanu-PF is waging an onslaught on the media as part of a broader bid to create a one-party state.

"This control of the media is not only to silence dissent but to create a particular citizen, who is docile, compliant and uncritical. You will have the officialisation of puppetry or parrotry so that everybody sings one song and there will be only one choir master," said Kagoro.

"The latest development demonstrated that the laws had no intention of regulating the media but controlling it and switching off those media the government is most afraid of and cannot control directly," said Andrew Moyse, head of the Media Monitoring Project, an independent media monitoring agency.

"There is no light at the end of the tunnel," Moyse said.

Along with the chokehold on the media, the government has asked internet service providers to sign contracts that compel them to monitor, report and even block "malicious messages" and any other material deemed in violation of Zimbabwe law.

Due to the high cost of telephone calls, the internet has become the most inexpensive mode of communication, widely used by both opposition members in exile and economic refugees to send messages back home.

Zimbabwe has the worst record on media freedom among the ten countries of southern Africa, according to the Windhoek-based Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog ranks Zimbabwe number 141 out of 166 countries on its press freedom index. - Sapa-AFP

SPONSORED BY

Advanced