(RSF/IFEX) – On 27 November 2002, RSF protested the Zimbabwean Information Ministry’s refusal to renew the work permit of Stéphane Barbier, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) bureau chief in Harare, and the government’s evident desire to prevent foreign journalists from working in Zimbabwe. “This decision clearly shows that the Zimbabwean government’s goal is to make all […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 27 November 2002, RSF protested the Zimbabwean Information Ministry’s refusal to renew the work permit of Stéphane Barbier, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) bureau chief in Harare, and the government’s evident desire to prevent foreign journalists from working in Zimbabwe.
“This decision clearly shows that the Zimbabwean government’s goal is to make all foreign journalists leave the country,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to Information Minister Jonathan Moyo. The organisation called on him to stop harassing foreign journalists and give them the accreditation they need to work freely and safely.
The information minister refused to renew Barbier’s work permit on 26 November without giving any explanation. However, he had already told AFP in the summer that no foreign journalist would henceforth be allowed to reside and work in Zimbabwe under the new Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), signed into law by President Robert Mugabe on 15 March. Foreign journalists will henceforth only be allowed to visit Zimbabwe provisionally, for limited periods, and after having received the ministry’s approval.
Barbier, a French citizen, took over as head of the Harare bureau in June 2001. He was originally given a one-year work permit that was renewed for six months in June 2002. He must now leave Zimbabwe by the end of the month. In September, the Information Ministry refused to renew the work permit of Griffin Shea, an American journalist who had been working for AFP in Harare for the past two years (see IFEX alerts of 13 and 10 September 2002). Shea was forced to leave Zimbabwe on 14 September.
The AIPPA gives the minister the power to decide who can work as a journalist in Zimbabwe. Since its passage, harassment of the foreign press has increased. Many journalists already found their requests for accreditation being turned down at the beginning of the year, when they were hoping to cover the presidential elections in early March.