and harassment in the Midlands and Mashonaland East areas. The radios were distributed to several groups, especially teachers, to form organised radio listening clubs in remote areas to allow people to listen to independent news broadcasts from outside Zimbabwe. Raymond Majongwe, the Secretary General of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) said: “I know for a fact that government agents are visiting schools and basically looking for the radios as well as getting specific information about those people who belong to the PTUZ.” Majongwe said so-called state agents are illegally forcing the teachers to provide their family histories to intimidate them. He said radios are being confiscated and unspecified action is threatened to those teachers who don’t hand them over. Most of this is happening in the Midlands area, especially Mberengwa and Gokwe. It’s also reported that several teachers have also fled Mashonaland East. The Governor of Mashonaland East Ray Kaukonde, was seen on national television threatening people who had received radios. Majongwe confirmed seeing the governor saying the people should be given food and not radios. We were not able to get a comment from Kaukonde but Majongwe said: “The issue is not about food it’s about access to information.” In December 2006 two lawyers from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights were also subjected to harassment and intimidation by state agents in Gokwe when they were trying to serve them with a court order. The police and the state agents were ordered by the court to return several radios that had been confiscated but Gokwe police refused to serve the court papers. There are no independent broadcasts from Zimbabwe. A sustained assault on press freedoms has resulted in nearly all Zimbabwe’s free media now operating outside the country. The government has been embarking on a systematic and relentless campaign to block stations like SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 from being heard by jamming broadcast frequencies. • ALERT Date: January 18, 2007 Persons: Nunurai Jena Violation: Threatened The Media and Information Commission (MIC) has summoned journalist Nunurai Jena to appear before it for a hearing over an expired accreditation card allegedly issued to him “in error” by the state-controlled media body. Ironically, the MIC’s notice of intention to cancel the expired accreditation card comes at a time when Jena is suing the Commission for defamation, arising from accusations made by its chairperson, Dr Tafataona Mahoso, against Jena. The matter is pending before the High Court. In a parallel process, the MIC has since notified Jena of its intention to delete his name from the roll of journalists on the basis that the accreditation card he holds was issued “in error or through fraud”. In a letter dated December 14, 2006, some 17 days before the expiration of the card issued to Jena for the 2006 accreditation year, the MIC summoned him to appear for a hearing at the MIC offices on February 1, 2007. The 2006 accreditations expired on December 31, 2006, and journalists are currently renewing their annual accreditations for 2007 as required under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Jena’s lawyers have since responded to the MIC, notifying the Commission that they will still challenge the deletion of his name from the “roll of journalists”. In addition, the MIC is demanding that Jena furnish them with documentation of his journalistic activities, local and foreign buyers of his stories and print-outs of the accounts into which he deposited his earnings from journalistic activities for the years 2005 and 2006. So This Is Democracy? 2007 -140- Media Institute of Southern Africa