The press is not free in Zimbabwe, and the state-controlled news organs are little more than cheerleading mouthpieces for the Mugabe regime. Independent weekly The Zimbabwean recently started a Sunday edition that’s become the country’s most-read Sunday paper. How? It’s printed in South Africa and distributed by truck; except that this Sunday’s edition won’t be arriving. The truck was hijacked and burned, and the two drivers badly beaten.
This is Zimbabwe » Blog Archive » Assault on media freedom in Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwean was established in February 2005 to stand against Mugabe’s media blackout. It exploits a loophole in Zimbabwe’s draconian anti-press legislation by being published and printed in South Africa and trucked into the country.
Despite frequently being harrassed and denounced, until this weekend every issue had made it safely to Harare, from where it was distributed throughout the country and devoured by a population starved of accurate information and fed a daily diet of the coarsest government propaganda.
