Just over a week ago, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) held a meeting to discuss the state of journalism in the country, where the guest of honour was the Information minister Jenfan Muswere.
George Maponga, the ZUJ president, laid into Muswere, saying that while the minister “seemed progressive,” there was little in the way of positive outcomes for journalists.
Maponga’s statement was quite brutal in a country where self-censorship is second nature particularly when dealing with senior government officials.
It was also spectacular for its sincerity and honesty.
On his part, Muswere took the verbal blow on the chin, before detailing a long list of achievements, one of which was that no journalist had been arrested since he took over the information portfolio.
Interestingly, when Muswere went into the meeting, he shook hands with all the guests, but kept asking where Dhara was, in reference to Mhlanga.
A day or so earlier, there had been reports that Mhlanga had been summoned to the police for the second time.
Barely a week later, what was supposed to be Muswere’s stellar achievement went up in smoke, with the arrest and the denial of bail for Blessed Mhlanga, the Alpha Media Holdings journalist.
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The state had long signposted Mhlanga’s arrest, having summoned him to the police station on two occasions prior.
In both cases, the police recanted their summons and let the journalist walk free.
Considering that no journalist had been arrested over the past two years, as per Muswere, Mhlanga’s arrest is quite chilling and is ominous for freedom of expression and freedom of the media.
What is clear is that very few journalists will be willing to give a platform to the characters that Mhlanga interviewed in the past six or so weeks as they will be fearing that they too will also be thrown in the slammer.
Mhlanga had interviewed characters like Blessing Geza and Saviour Kasukuwere, former legislators who have expressed their opposition to President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
This marks the heightening of self-censorship and fear among Zimbabwean journalists, who will now not dare stray beyond the accepted narrative.
This means that very few journalists will have the courage to interview these two among a host of other people, yet the very idea of democracy is that everyone, no matter how unpalatable, should be heard.
Essentially, they have been deplatformed and that is the very antithesis of the democracy that Zimbabwe claims it wants to build.
You may not like Geza, Kasukuwere or anyone for that matter, but they all have the right to be heard and no one should be arrested for giving them a platform.
Zimbabwean journalism is already limping having been crudely tackled by the country’s economic challenges and such arrests will only help destroy this important industry.
To the outside world, Mhlanga’s arrest sends a message that Zimbabwe is a paranoid country that brooks no dissent.
It negates the message that Zimbabwe is open for business as no country that is yearning, nay desperate for investment, will go down the route of imprisoning journalists ostensibly for the stories they published or the guests that they interviewed.
Mhlanga’s arrest makes a mockery of the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom and freedom of the media that are guaranteed in the Zimbabwean constitution.
Journalists should not face arrest for simply doing their jobs, which is interviewing the most agreeable of characters or the most cantankerous of personalities.
At this point, it is time for cool heads to prevail and we realise that there is no winner following Mhlanga’s arrest and instead, as a country, we have begun knocking on the door of pariah status.
Over the past couple of years, Zimbabwe improved its ranking on press freedom indices such as the Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index.
The country was still poorly ranked, but there were signs of progress. However, this arrest is a stain on the country’s reputation.
There is need for a de-escalation and it is incumbent for the state to look for a way out of this case without resorting to Mhlanga’s detention.
We have been here before, where journalists were regularly arrested, but it did our country no good.
Instead, Zimbabwe became an international outcast and it took the country several decades to recover.
However, I understand that political tempers are beginning to rise, as the 2030 agenda seems to be losing no steam.
This is why I call for cool heads instead of the approach where the only tool in our toolbox is the hammer and we see every problem as a nail.
I am confident Mhlanga will eventually be released, but the harm that this causes the nation’s reputation will take longer to repair.
I know there are others who do not care how much harm this does to the country, but for those who do, now is the time to counsel your colleagues.
For example, Zimbabwe is working on a debt clearance strategy with the African Development Bank, where one of the issues on the table is the respect for human rights and the rule of law.
An arrest of a journalist will always raise questions about whether a country upholds human rights.
