The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders has condemned the Zimbabwe government and the state-owned Zimpapers group for spying on editors to check their loyalty to President Robert Mugabe.

Zimpapers chief executive Justin Mutasa admitted in court that he had placed all his editors under electronic surveillance to establish whether they supported the ruling ZANU-PF party. He authorised the use of password-cracking software to hack into their private email accounts.

Mutasa disclosed the spying at a labour hearing in which Bhekinkosi Ncube, suspended editor of the Bulawayo-based vernacular magazine Umthunywa, is fighting against dismissal.

Reporters Without Borders said in a news release that "In an attempt to evade responsibility" Mutasa told the hearing it was the information minister, not himself, who determined editorial policy for the Zimpapers group. "The minutes of the hearing quote him as saying: 'Every incoming minister calls all the editors and expounds to them what he expects from them. Editors must comply.'”

Ncube is alleged to have insulted President Mugabe in an email sent from his private email address. "The accusation is baseless and proves only that his personal email was monitored," said Reporters Without Borders."We call for his reinstatement, the destruction of all the gathered data and an investigation into the government’s violation of the Interception of Communications Act.”

Ncube was suspended in August for publishing a photo of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change with the caption “Walile u Tsvangirai” (Tsvangirai refuses to sign). At the time, negotiations were under way between the MDC and the ruling ZANU-PF for power sharing after the March general elections.

The Zimbabwean Broadcast Corporation’s CEO, Henry Muradzikwa, and seven of its journalists were fired in May for not supporting Mugabe and ZANU-PF sufficiently during the election campaign.

Zimpapers is 51 per cent owned by the Mass Media Trust, which was set up by the government in 1980. The country’s biggest print media group, it consists of six newspapers. One of them, The Herald, has a circulation of 45,000 and is Zimbabwe’s most widely-read daily.

Adopted in August 2007, the Interception of Communication Act allows the government to tap phone calls and monitor email and fax communications in order to “guarantee national security” but does not authorise hacking into private email correspondence without a warrant.

Zimbabwe was ranked 151st out of 173 countries in the 2008 press freedom index which Reporters Without Borders released in October. "Journalism continues to be a dangerous and frustrating profession in Zimbabwe and journalists are constantly harassed by the police and courts," the news release said.
       
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world. It has more than 120 correspondents worldwide.
       
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