A Zimbabwean high court on Monday ordered police to desist from arresting, detaining or interfering with the work of journalists providing coverage during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and journalist Panashe Makufa had petitioned the court to issue the order following a string of incidents in which police and other law enforcement agencies harassed or arrested journalists while carrying out their duties.

“The High Court has directed that… arrests or detention or other forms of harassment must stop,” a lawyer for the applicants, Chris Mhike, told AFP after the ruling.

“The police and all others who are working with the police in enforcing the rules of the lockdown have been interdicted from carrying out those actions that amount to harassment of journalists,” Mhike said.

Enforcing

Announcing the ruling in court, Judge Jacob Manzunzu gave the police hierarchy 12 hours to inform its members and other law enforcement agencies involved in enforcing the lockdown that the 2019 press card is valid.

Some police officers have raised concerns over the expiry dates of official press cards, demanding that journalists produce letters of exemption in addition to the cards.

The government had categorised journalism as an essential service during the lockdown.

But the police argued that “journalists are not exempted from the lockdown,” claiming that only journalists “from broadcasting and internet” were exempt.

The debate was laid to rest this weekend when the government exempted “the activities of persons as journalists, newspaper vendors or employees of such services” in its announcement extending the 21-day lockdown by 14 days to May 3.

By Dr Mercy Alu

I am a mother, HR consultant, author, Goodwill Ambassador with Globcal (a partner with UN on SDG's in Africa), coordinator with International Association of African Authors/Scholars, a songwriter/recording artist, researcher, and social anthropologist of sorts! I believe we should all live our best lives, and enjoy helping organizations and individuals perform better. I and my guest authors love to share information about the world around us; African events & Entertainment, plus lots of good information about Health, Wellness, Family, Book Publishing, Business, Relationships, Culture, Folk Stories, and much more. I speak several languages including French and Igbo (a West African Language). I enjoy research, writing, reading, singing and finding out lots of things about, well, lots of things! Knowledge is power. So information and knowledge gained from experiences, observation, all flavor the things I write about in the exciting blog portion of this website. Feel free to drop me a line or two, I also want to hear from you!

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