State of the media in Southern Africa - 2003 charges of violating Section 83 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which prohibits anyone from practicing as a journalist without accreditation. Karombo’s lawyer argued that the section under which the journalist was being charged was already being challenged at the Supreme Court. The court was provided with copies of the application by the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (IJAZ), whose case challenges a number of the AIPPA sections, including Section 83. • DATE: May 22, 2003 PERSONS/INSTITUTIONS: Nqobile Nyathi, Sydney Masamvu, Luke Tamborinyoka and Abel Mutsakani VIOLATIONS: Threatened T he government appointed Media and Information Commission is demanding accredita tion cards it issued to four journalists be returned. According to the commission, the journalists have changed jobs and need to apply again as they cannot work for their new employer who is not licensed. Commission Chairperson Tafataona Mahoso wrote to the Associated Newspapers Group (ANZ), publishers of The Daily News, demanding that Nqobile Nyathi, Sydney Masamvu, Luke Tamborinyoka and Abel Mutsakani return accreditation cards issued when they were employed by the Financial Gazette. The four have since joined the The Daily News. Mahoso said that it is fraudulent for journalists accredited while employed by one newspaper company to work for another. • DATE: June 2 and 3, 2003 PERSONS/INSTITUTIONS: Daily News VIOLATIONS: Censored, beaten S upporters of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) have destroyed thousands of copies of the privately-owned Daily News newspaper since the beginning of a nation-wide strike called for by the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), on June 2 2003. MISA’s Zimbabwe chapter, witnessed hundreds of copies of The Daily News, Financial Gazette, The Standard and the Zimbabwe Independent being destroyed. Similar incidents were recorded in other towns such as Kwekwe, Bulawayo and Gweru. The destruction of independent papers, especially The Daily News, continued on June 3 in central Harare. People found reading or carrying a copy of The Daily News were reported to have been beaten by Zanu-PF supporters. The ruling party accused The Daily News of supporting the five-day strike. Ongoing harassment and beating of newspaper vendors has also occurred. • DATE: June 2 and 3, 2003 PERSONS/INSTITUTIONS: Daily News VIOLATIONS: Threatened O n June 2 2004, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo launched an attack on The Daily News, accusing the paper of writing a false story over a High Court judgment stopping the strike. The minister accused the newspaper of working with the MDC and not verifying facts when writing stories. The Daily News extensively quoted the MDC leadership’s objections to the court order, which they said had many anomalies. So This Is Democracy? 2003 121 Media Institute of Southern Africa