Muradzikwa said interference with ZBH’s editorial policy and government’s expectations of the state broadcaster undermined media freedom. Muradzikwa said the Ministry of Information should be clear on how it wants the broadcaster to report. He said provincial governors were abusing ZBH bureau chiefs by treating them as part of their staff. He also revealed that ZBH’s Iran-backed digitalisation programme had been stalled because of an unsettled debt of US$3 million. “The difficulty is that this is not a ZBH debt alone. It was incurred by both ZBH and ARDA (Agricultural Rural Development Authority). ZBH has paid its half.” • ALERT Date: September 28, 2007 Persons: Daniel Maphosa, Sylvanos Mudzvova, Anthony Tongani, James Jemwa Violation: Detained On September 28 2007, police arrested two actors and a journalist during the performance of a satirical play about the country’s political situation. Plain-clothes police stormed the wings of the Theatre in the Park during an intermission in a performance of The Final Push by playwright Daniel Maphosa, and led actors Sylvanos Mudzvova and Anthony Tongani away to a truck. James Jemwa, an independent journalist who was filming the performance, was also arrested when he asked the police to explain why the actors were being detained. The Final Push makes fun of Zimbabwe’s eight-year-old political crisis. Its title refers to protest marches organised by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 2003, which were violently dispersed by the police. Jemwa and the two actors are being held at Harare police headquarters. They have not been charged and they have not been allowed to contact a lawyer. • ALERT Date: September 18, 2007 Persons: Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), Violation: Legislation (threatening) In a revealing and first time acknowledgment of the restrictive nature of the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA), the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), says its hands are tied as no new broadcasting players can come into the scene under the present regulatory environment. Giving evidence before the Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications on August 17, 2007, BAZ Chief Executive Officer Obert Muganyura says the authority, set under the BSA, has failed to license new players as no potential private players can meet the “stringent criteria”. “We gave the projection that we would by this time have licensed new players on the understanding that the Broadcasting Services Act would have been amended, but it has not yet”, said Muganyura to the Parliamentarians. The stringent requirements in the BSA that Muganyura described as problematic include a ban on foreign funding and ownership, restrictions on the number of national free to air private broadcasters that can be licensed, as well as the restrictions placed on ownership of frequency transmitters. The BSA provides that only the government-owned company, Transmedia, can own frequency transmitters and all new players have to line up to do business with Transmedia. As the situation stands in Zimbabwe, Transmedia is failing to provide adequate services to one TV station, the state owned Zimbabwe Television, as well as to four FM radio stations, all owned by the state through the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. So This Is Democracy? 2007 -130- Media Institute of Southern Africa