misinformation, closing down channels for accessing such information, threats and harassment of media workers, or curtailing the public’s rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association. Progress on reforms At policy level, the GPA provided for media Reform and this part of the Roadmap listed eight agreed activities: (i) Appointment of new board for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation which was not done. According to VERITAS Trust, as the government is the only shareholder this should have been straightforward. (ii) Appointment of new board for the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), which was not done. The existing appointments were irregular – for instance, the necessary Parliamentary preliminaries for appointing some BAZ members were not carried out. (iii) Licensing of new broadcasters was not effectively done. This reform was only nominally implemented, by the licensing of two new broadcasters, which are widely regarded as not truly independent. No community radio stations have been licensed. (iv) Appointment of new trustees for the Mass Media Trust have not been made. This Trust holds the controlling interest in the company owning the State-controlled newspaper group and is government appointed. The Government has previously changed body and trustees, so this could have been done. Items (i), (ii) and (iv) above were accepted by the negotiators, by Cabinet, and by the GPA principals. Nevertheless the ZANU PF Minister of Media, Information and Publicity refused to implement these three agreements. (v) Establishment, by October 2011, of the Media Council of Zimbabwe. This was done, the Council having been set up very late but remains inactive. The Media Commission under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act appointed the Media Council in September 2012, nearly a year after the target date of 1st November 2011. The Council should have drawn up a code of ethics for the media sector [not done] and be investigating alleged breaches of the code – which it obviously cannot do until the code is produced. (vi) Calling on foreign governments to stop hosting/funding external radio stations broadcasting into Zimbabwe. This was not achieved. Other parties in the inclusive Government considered that for this to be done these stations needed to be given licenses to broadcast from within the country and that until then they will be hosted elsewhere. (vii) Encouraging the return of Zimbabwean broadcasters running or working for external radio stations was not done. A ZANU-PF-controlled Ministry has blocked the reforms that might have encouraged these broadcasters to return. (viii) Prohibition of “hate speech” in the State media has not been achieved. State media organs, both print and broadcasting, have conspicuously failed to honour this in respect of MDC-T and MDC Ministers. There continued to be a failure by the government to implement media-related reforms, especially rolling back the regime of censorship and secrecy that were the hallmarks of the previous colonial era. There has been no review of repressive legislation such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act [Chapter 10:27] (AIPPA), the Public Order and Security Act [Chapter 11:17] (POSA) and the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [Chapter 9:23], (the Criminal Law Code), among others and these continue to stifle media freedoms and have resulted in the arrests of journalists, citizen journalists and several citizens5. 5 ZLHR statement on World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2013 under the theme “Safe to Speak: Securing Freedom of Expression in All Media” 5 Reporters Without Borders 3 May 32013 statement 29