Media freedom monitoring
To do this, we compile a list of media violations and victories – accurate and detailed records of abuses of, or progress toward, a free, independent, diverse and pluralistic media as envisaged by the Windhoek Declaration.
Media violations are issued in the form of alerts to educate people about the nature of the abuse and highlight trends. Alerts can also serve as advocacy tools and inform research to help influence changes to legislation and policy, as well as help bring perpetrators to justice.
Media violations include:
- when journalists are physically or verbally assaulted, threatened, injured, kidnapped, disappear, arrested, killed, censored, denied credentials or wrongfully expelled during the course of their work or as a direct result of their work
- when news outlets are attacked, illegally searched, censored, closed by force, raided, unable to report, broadcast or publish because of factors such as the confiscation of equipment, blocking of their online site or the jamming of transmissions
- when new legislation or changes to legislation hinder journalists from conducting their work freely and without fear.
We use this information to compile the annual State of the Media Report that tabulates the alerts and analyses them against the prevailing media environment. This report feeds into the MISA regional report, So this is Democracy? which ranks and measures the performance of Zimbabwe against other countries in the Southern African region.
Media freedom news from our chapters
Policy Brief: Addressing The Gaps In The Data Protection, Privacy And Surveillance Legislation (Now Available!)
Executive Summary Zimbabwe has various pieces of legislation that affect data protection, privacy, and surveillance. The relevant pieces of legislation regarding data protection and privacy include, but are not limited to, the Cyber and Data Protection Act [Chapter...
Open Letter to the AU Heads of State and Government on the Endorsed Continental AI Strategy and African Digital Compact
Date: 22 July 2024 Your Excellencies, 1. This open letter is produced in response to the statement made on 17 June 2024 by the African Union Commission announcing the endorsement of the Continental Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy and African Digital Compact by...
Condolence message on the passing on of journalist Lucy Yasini
The passing of senior journalist Lucy Yasini will undoubtedly create a void in the number of female journalists who report from the ‘frontlines’ in the otherwise male-dominated Zimbabwean media landscape. Yasini was always in the thick of things, toe-to-toe with her...
MISA Regional 2023 Annual Report (Now Available!!!)
Expression in the Age of Fragmentation The world is more fragmented today than ever. Strife is more pronounced at a global scale, with conflicts degenerating to armed conflict. The number of people living in fragile states is perpetually on the increase, while more...
MISA ZIMBABWE 2023 STATE OF THE MEDIA REPORT (Now Available!!!)
Introduction The United Nations Plan of Action on The Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity is anchored on four fundamental pillars of Prevention, Protection, Prosecution and Partnerships. With these four pillars in mind, MISA Zimbabwe accelerated and...