Zimbabwe to screen foreign journalists

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ZIMBABWE is planning to closely screen foreign media intending to cover upcoming elections amid suspicions uninvited observers and security personnel might impersonate western reporters, state media reported.

Accreditation of some 300 foreign journalists who applied to cover the country’s March 29 general elections will be closely supervised, as the government was aware of "the machinations to turn journalists into observers," information secretary George Charamba told the state-run Sunday Mail.

In particular, he said, the government feared "uninvited observers and security personnel from the western countries," might be applying to cover the vote as reporters, the weekly quoted Charamba as saying.

Preference would be given to reporters from Africa and the "national identity of the news organisations will be a major determinant," he added.

Besides Africa, journalists who have applied to cover the event hail from Europe and North America and Asia.

"The issue of media accreditation is as much an information issue as it is a foreign policy issue," Charamba said, adding that teams from the government’s foreign affairs, information and security branches would scrutinise each application and work closely with Zimbabwe’s electoral commission.

Zimbabwe has invited SADC and 46 other teams of monitors from regional groups such as the African Union to monitor the vote, along with countries including China, Russia and Iran with whom President Robert Mugabe enjoys relatively good relations.

But European Union member states and the United States - which both accused Mugabe of rigging his re-election in 2002 - have not been invited to monitor the voting, the government said. - AFP
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