Author Archives: David Coltart

By the Financial Gazette 21 June 2007 Njabulo Ncube Harare BIG brother is watching. This aptly describes the jittery mood within the media and telecommunications sectors in Zimbabwe following the passing by Parliament last Wednesday of the controversial Interception of Communications Bill, despite opposition to some of its provisions by opposition legislators and free speech […]

Voice of America By Peta Thornycroft Southern Africa 15 June 2007 Zimbabwe this week passed a new law allowing the government to monitor telephones, mail and the Internet. For VOA, Peta Thornycroft reports that the Zimbabwe government justifies this new law by saying it is necessary to protect national security. President Robert Mugabe regularly tells […]

By Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe’s House of Assembly on 13 June 2007 passed the controversial Interception of Communications Bill without amendments despite opposition to some of its provisions by opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) legislators. MISA Zimbabwe National Director Rashweat Mukundu said the passing of the bill marks yet another sad […]

By Reuters Published: June 13, 2007, 4:44 PM PDT The lower house of Zimbabwe’s parliament passed a bill on Wednesday allowing the government to monitor phones, mail and the Internet to protect national security. While conceding the country needed to protect itself against terrorism, opposition members said they feared the bill would pave the way […]

Published in the Washington Post by Michael Gerson A nation is dying, its leader a tyrant, its neighbors indifferent Thursday, June 14, 2007 WASHINGTON – When I talked earlier this week with David Coltart, a Zimbabwean member of parliament and human rights lawyer, his office in Bulawayo had been without power for five hours. The […]

Financial Times by Alec Russell Published: May 21 2007 03:00 The people of Nswazwi are once again on the move. Three decades ago their tiny settlement of thatched mud huts, a few miles from the border with Botswana, was caught up in Zimbabwe’s liberation war. Many residents fled across the frontier before returning home to […]

Institute for War and Peace Reporting New bill aims to address emotional scars of mass killings, but some say it doesn’t go far enough. By Fiso Dingaan in Lupane, Matabeleland (AR No. 109, 18-Apr-07) Fighting hard to hold back tears, 52-year-old Ernest Ngwenya points to three mounds of soil crudely marked with stones and burnt […]