tions as mandated under the various charters and conventions it has signed, ratified and acceded to in order to foster an environment that respects freedom of expression as a fundamental human right1. This intransigence is amply demonstrated through the enactment and amendments to legislations that have a direct bearing on the exercise of the right to freedom of expression. Despite wide criticism against its restrictive media laws in the wake of the closure of four independent publications, harsh legislation designed to protect the executive from any form of criticism continues to find its way into the country’s statutes. Private and government-owned media, however, cannot escape blame for failing to put issues pertaining to human rights on the national agenda, especially in relation to social, economic, political and cultural rights. While cases pertaining to the harassment, arrest, vilification and assault of journalists working for the private media have declined compared to the period leading to the 2000 and 2002 parliamentary and presidential elections, respectively, the clamped legislative media environment is still far from ideal. The decline in cases of media freedom violations is largely due to the absence of the critically informative Daily News and other newspapers such as The Tribune2. The enactment of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act and the tabling of the General Laws Amendment Act, which seek to tighten sections of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), speak volumes of a government still recovering from the scare of the tightly contested 2000 elections. The repressive Broadcasting Services Act (BSA), Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) were put in place after the ruling Zanu-PF’s near defeat in the 2000 parliamentary elections. This triggered an unprecedented wave of violence against private media journalists and opposition supporters ahead of the 2002 presidential elections. These developments were not restricted to the print media alone. Scores of experienced journalists and broadcasters were retrenched at the then Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, now Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH), and replaced by juniors handpicked by then Minister of Information and Publicity Professor Jonathan Moyo. The retrenched media workers are still to receive their retrenchment packages some three years after they were made redundant3. This has led to most of them living from hand to mouth, while others have relocated to South Africa, the United Kingdom and United States. As a result, the country’s sole public broadcaster is manned by inexperienced personnel, as evidenced by the poor quality of news and programme content. Those still in ZBH’s employ sometimes have to contend with late salaries, while security of tenure is also never guaranteed for those working in the private or government-controlled media, as arrests of journalists or closure of independent publications is always a risk. Journalists working for the independent press have been variously referred to as agents of imperialism; sell-outs; enemies of the state; and lapdogs of the former colonial master, Britain, bent on derailing the land reform programme. These verbal attacks have provided the context to the government’s intolerance of freedom of expression. As recently as November 3 2005, the government-run Herald published a vitriolic article on So This Is Democracy? 2005 -143- Media Institute of Southern Africa