IV. Background Brief History of ZANU-PF Repression Since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, President Robert Mugabe and his party, the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), have resorted to violent repression and the misuse of security forces, including the army and the police, to maintain their power.1 In 1999, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was formed as an alternative to ZANU-PF, which was confronting a rapid loss of popular support and an increasingly vocal civil society mobilizing around constitutional reform. From 2002, ZANU-PF reacted to critical voices and civic activism by narrowing democratic space through the passage of laws that curtailed fundamental freedoms, including the right to freedom of expression.2 Using its majority in Parliament, ZANU-PF in 2002 enacted and implemented the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), in part to control the media and restrict free expression.3 It relied on the AIPPA, for example, to ban the only independent daily paper in Zimbabwe, The Daily News, in 2003. Although the act was amended in January 2008, abolishing the Media and Information Commission and establishing a new Zimbabwe Media Commission, it retained stringent rules regarding the registration and regulation of journalists and the media.4 ZANU-PF has also engaged in widespread violence to sustain political control in successive election periods, particularly in the years 2000, 2002, 2005, and 2008.5 In the March 29, 2008 elections, ZANU-PF suffered an extraordinary and unexpected defeat at the hands of MDC. The then ruling party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since independence in 1980. Results for the presidential elections, which took place the same day, 1 See Human Rights Watch, “Our Hands Are Tied”: Erosion of the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe, ISBN: 1-56432-404-4, November 2008, http://www.hrw.org/node/76102. 2 For a detailed legal analysis of the media laws promulgated during this period, see Tawanda Hondora, “Media Laws in Zimbabwe: A Constitutional and Comparative Analysis of Zimbabwean Laws that Infringe Media Freedom,” Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA Zimbabwe) Konrad Adenauer Foundation (2003), Harare. 3 “The State of the Media Report 2009,” Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe), 2003. On file with Human Rights Watch. 4 Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Chapter 10:27) arts. 79 and 80. Human Rights Watch interview with Kumbirai Mafunda, MISA-Zimbabwe chairperson for the Harare Chapter, Harare, February 15, 2010; and Human Rights Watch interview with media law expert Wilbert Mandinde, Harare, February 3, 2010. 5 Human Rights Watch, “Bullets for Each of You”: State-Sponsored Violence since Zimbabwe’s March 29 Elections, ISBN: 156432-324-2, June 2008, http://www.hrw.org/node/40484. 7 Human Rights Watch | April 2010