"If we look at our situation both from a legal and operational position, we are lagging behind" in media freedoms, Biti said
he opened a two-day congress of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) in Harare.
"The good news is that we have begun to take decisive steps to ensure we extricate ourselves out of the media deficit."
"Our country is going through an important and defining process, the constitution-making process, and one of the rights we will see is the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the media as well."
President Robert Mugabe’s government introduced stringent media laws in 2002 which were invoked to expel foreign reporters and ban several private newspapers, including a popular daily renowned for its anti-government stance.
"Zimbabwean journalists have over the past few years operated under some extremely difficult conditions," Foster Dongozi, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists told the congress.
"This resulted in some journalists fleeing the country while others were arrested or beaten up. We therefore hope that the anticipated media reforms as laid out in the power-sharing deal will be implemented immediately." Under the unity deal that brought together Mugabe with his erstwhile rival Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister last year, the government is meant to commit to greater media freedom.
A new council with powers to regulate the media held its first meeting last week while a daily banned in 2003 flighted an advertisement calling back its former journalists and inviting new ones to apply for jobs. Greater media freedom is one of the key demands of western donors, who are insisting on political reforms before committing to major new aid to the unity government. Work on Zimbabwe’s new constitution has stalled since last year, but is set to get under way with a series of public consultations next month.
Source: Africa The Good News
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