Fury at Zimbabwe paper closure

The closure of Zimbabwe's leading independent newspaper The Daily News earlier this month set off a heated debate in the Zimbabwean press.

In the rest of the region, however, the story went largely unnoticed.

South Africa, where angry papers called for a drastic change of policy on Zimbabwe, was a notable exception.

Travesty

"So now we have no free daily paper," mourned Zimbabwe's opposition Financial Gazette.

"Will Zimbabwe become... completely cut off from the outside world, with no news either coming in or going out? [The ruling] ZANU-PF would love that, so that they can carry out their acts without fear of exposure."

The opposition weekly Standard said the Supreme Court's ruling, which found the paper in breach of controversial new media legislation, set a "dangerous" precedent.

"It has not taken long for the enemies of the free press to pounce on The Daily News," the paper said in an editorial headlined "Travesty of Justice".

The independent press, together with the judiciary and the opposition, have borne the full brunt of Mugabe's tyranny in the past few years Business Day

Zimbabwe's pro-government Herald, on the other hand, argued that the opposition paper was guilty of "wanton disregard for the laws of the country" and got exactly what it deserved.

"It boggles the mind to think that a newspaper which purports to 'tell it like it is' does not live up to its motto... but instead opts to paint a gory picture of a repressed people cowering before an omnipotent dictator who does not even allow people to speak their minds"

It dismissed the closure of The Daily News as "self-inflicted", saying the paper's opposition stance was not an excuse for breaking the law.

"The Daily News was not shut down for its vilification of the government but for flouting media laws which have been respected by all other papers operating in the country."

Disaster

In South Africa, Business Day argued that the media legislation was itself "intended to muzzle the private media".

It said the Supreme Court chairman's predecessor was "hounded out" by the government, and the court was now "packed" with Mugabe's supporters.

"The independent press, together with the judiciary and the opposition, have borne the full brunt of Mugabe's tyranny in the past few years," the paper said.

This is quiet diplomacy of the weasel variety The Citizen

South Africa's Beeld said the paper had been closed on a "legal technicality". "That is precisely what Mugabe had in mind when the draconian media legislation was steamrolled through parliament last year," the Afrikaans-language daily said.

Like other South African papers, Beeld took the issue as a personal slight after Mr Mugabe's promise to South African leader Thabo Mbeki to review the media legislation.

"Mugabe could not have sent a stronger message that he does not concern himself about pressure by his fellow leaders in Africa or the international community," the paper fumed. It lashed at its own government for its softly-softly policy on Zimbabwe.

"What it is about this blatant undemocratic media legislation that the government does not understand?... Mbeki, after all, personally asked Mugabe to review the legislation. All he has to show for his effort is another violation."

Mugabe has lost his honour and needs to be engaged differently The Star

"Mugabe has not honoured a range of agreements, even the ones he pledged to Mbeki," agreed the South African daily Star. It argued that Thabo Mbeki's policy of diplomatic engagement had proved futile.

"Pretoria must accept that quiet diplomacy is applicable to honourable leaders. Mugabe has lost his honour and needs to be engaged differently," the paper said.

"Mbeki's quiet approach has been an unmitigated disaster for ordinary Zimbabweans," echoed Johannesburg's The Citizen, describing the South African government's policy on Zimbabwe as "quiet diplomacy of the weasel variety".

"It is unconscionable that the Presidency should vigorously support Robert Mugabe just days after his armed police closed the Daily News," the paper said.

Turn for the worse

Kenya's Daily Nation - one of the few African papers outside Zimbabwe and South Africa to comment on the closure of The Daily News- took a similar line.

"President Thabo Mbeki seems determined to split the Commonwealth along racist lines by insisting that President Robert Mugabe be invited to the club's December summit in Nigeria," the daily said.

When mad dictators emerge in Europe, they get bombed back into the stone age Standard

"If anything, the recent assaults on media freedom and all the other oppressive behaviour of the Mugabe regime plainly show that things have actually taken a turn for the worse."

In neighbouring Zambia, The Post said the closure of The Daily News was just another entry in Zimbabwe's sorry record of media oppression.

"The Zimbabwean government has never shown much commitment to the defence of a free, independent and robustly critical press. It has never accepted the freedom of the press as its inalienable right to be a critic and a monitor".

But it was left to Zimbabwe's own Standard to deliver the harshest verdict.

"When mad dictators emerge in Europe, they get bombed back into the stone age. That is the right and proper thing to do. But why is it that when even madder dictators wreak havoc in Africa, their excesses are not just condoned, but actually justified?"

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.