Safety of journalists brought to the fore ahead of...

Safety of journalists brought to the fore ahead of elections

Zim Now Writer

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network has advocated for the safety of Media practitioners ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections.

During a Twitter space held by ZESN, Multi-Media Journalist and ZESN Communications for Development Specialist, Rutendo Mawere, highlighted the need to have safety and security mechanisms in place to safeguard media practitioners during elections.

“Most journalists are concerned about their safety. Even so many years after independence, and many years after committing to ensuring a free press we still have threats against journalists.

“Reports that have been done by various media organisations show that these threats on their own make journalists not able to carry out their duties freely because of the fear factor.

“We are family people. We hope that this year we will have a different election period where people will not be arrested in line of duty. For some journalists, it means that their lives are under threat and they would not be certain that they would actually cover the entirety of the elections without getting arrested,” she said.

Secretary-General for Zimbabwe Union for Journalists, Perfect Hlongwane, emphasised that it is important for media organisations to have dialogue with state security on measures on how to work together on the ground.

“We do know that ZMC has been providing these jackets but the challenge is sometimes they are not properly distributed. Only established media organisations end up getting them leaving the rest without. Can the Commission come up with ways of fairly distributing the jackets to the intended recipients?” he said.

Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Media Commission, Prof Ruby Magosvongwe, said the Commission was in the process of engaging various stakeholders to ensure that there is co-existence and peaceful coverage of the elections.

Prof Magosvongwe said the Commission has put in place measures to ensure that there will be fair distribution of the press jackets in time ahead of the elections.

“You seem to be pre-empting the issue of journalists being victims of violence. It is unfortunate that when we come to platforms like this one, we already have preconceived ideas or perceptions that have no basis.

“To the best of our knowledge as ZMC we have not received any imperial evidence concerning victimisation of journalists during this period before we get to the electoral period.

“We need to focus on peaceful coexistence not to pre-empt that there is going to be violence and we are going to be attacked yet we are still in the process of trying to create dialogue around the challenges perceived,” she said.