Zimbabwe
Zim government defends new accreditation regulations

afrol News, 18 June - Zimbabwe's Permanent Secretary in the Department of Information and Publicity, George Charamba has defended the new accreditation regulation which requires foreign journalists to apply for accreditation from their countries and a month before the intended/planned visit to Zimbabwe, according to a report in The Sunday Mail yesterday.

Charamba said that this was the practice worldwide, where journalists applied for accreditation while outside the country being visited.

- When we went to The United Kingdom for the President's official visit we were required to submit the reporters names three months before the visit, he explained. "Similarly when we went to Durban, South Africa for the Non Aligned Movement summit, we submitted our names a month before and I personally went there two weeks prior to the conference," said Charamba.

He added that he is currently working on Zimbabwean journalists' accreditation for the SADC conference in Malawi in two months time.

He went on to say that there were a number of other considerations, including security, which journalists like any other traveler have to be subjected to. He said immigration controls and customs had to be taken into consideration since duty paid by journalists was in foreign currency and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development was responsible for that.

- Why should one apply for accreditation when he is already in the country, what if we say no? he asked. They regard it as a fait accompli that they will be granted accreditation. A journalists despite being a professional, is also a traveler and has to be subjected to normal immigration and customs laws," said Charamba.

- Journalists are being used as undercover spies by some governments and we cannot just allow them to come in and go as they like, he said. "We have the case of a British journalists who came in and started investigating Zimbabwe over reports of plunder of diamonds and timber in the DRC", said Charamba.

Source: Based on Media Instittue of Southern Africa (MISA)

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