The never-ending war on truth | Media

On March 9, 2015, 5 males driving a white truck with a hid quantity plate kidnapped Itai Dzamara, a Zimbabwean journalist and activist, from a barbershop within the Zimbabwean capital Harare.

Inside seconds, he was bundled into the unmarked automobile and pushed to an unknown location.

Dzamara has not been seen ever since.

Eight days earlier than his enforced disappearance, he had referred to as on Zimbabweans to reveal in opposition to the robust and deteriorating socioeconomic situations of their nation.

And he had referred to as on then-President Robert Mugabe to resign.

His pressured disappearance was not a unprecedented occasion in a rustic the place journalists had been (and nonetheless are) routinely harassed and detained by authorities for publishing tales deemed to be “politically delicate” or damaging to these in positions of energy.

Sixteen years earlier, in January 1999, two journalists, Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, who labored for the Normal newspaper, had been forcibly disappeared for 10 days. Whereas underneath unlawful detention, they suffered electrical shocks to their fingers, ft, and genitals and their heads had been submerged in drums of water. After they finally appeared in courtroom, they each had burn marks on their our bodies. Their alleged crime was to publish a narrative about 23 military officers being arrested for plotting a coup in opposition to President Mugabe.

In 2008, Jestina Mukoko, a outstanding former TV journalist, who additionally runs an NGO, was kidnapped from her dwelling in the midst of the night time, detained incommunicado for days and tortured by alleged state brokers, for her alleged involvement in planning anti-government protests.

She fortunately survived her horrific ordeal, and returned to her household and advocacy work.

However Dzamara has not been as fortunate. He has by no means returned dwelling to his spouse and two younger youngsters.

Yearly on the anniversary of his disappearance, Zimbabweans take to social media to recollect him and to vent their frustrations about Zimbabwe’s seemingly endless battle on journalists, and fact.

Regardless of efforts by civil society and the primary opposition occasion, the state seems extraordinarily reluctant to resolve Dzamara’s case and eventually ship justice to his long-suffering household.

Mugabe has been out of energy since 2017, and Zimbabwe is supposedly a modified nation, however thus far, the Zimbabwean authorities has not even bothered to launch a high-level investigation into Dzamara’s violent abduction.

This speaks volumes about Harare’s unrelenting contempt for the reality, and battle on those that dare to talk fact to energy.

Whoever disappeared Dzamara clearly supposed to instil a substantial amount of concern in media practitioners and kill journalism within the small southern African nation.

To some extent, they’ve succeeded.

As lately as this February, an area paper, the NewsHawks, was pressured to desert its investigations into the Zimbabwe Nationwide Military after delicate threats from senior military officers.

Journalists who dare to research navy and authorities corruption in Zimbabwe nonetheless anticipate to be harassed, unlawfully arrested, tortured or worse to at the present time.

Regrettably, Zimbabwe isn’t an outlier. This proclivity to threaten or kill the messenger to hide bitter truths seems to be endemic throughout Africa and across the globe.

Joao Chamusse – a veteran Mozambican journalist, and the co-owner and editor of on-line newspaper Ponto por Ponto – was discovered lifeless within the yard of his home in KaTembe, Maputo Metropolis, on December 14, 2023. His neighbours mentioned they heard him scream for assist earlier than falling silent.

His horrendous homicide got here on the again of a wave of intimidation in opposition to journalists and media retailers within the run-up to this 12 months’s normal election.

In Lesotho’s capital Maseru, Ralikonelo “Leqhashasha” Joki, who was a outstanding reporter for Ts’enolo FM radio station, was shot not less than 13 instances by unknown assailants as he left the studio after a present in Could 2023. Joki was extremely important of state officers, and his dying seems associated to his endeavours to reveal the reality and maintain authorities officers accountable for his or her actions.

It might be amiss to talk of the battle on fact tellers with out paying homage to the Palestinian journalists killed in Israel’s battle on Gaza. Not less than 88 Palestinian media staff have been killed as they braved shelling to reveal Israel’s genocidal violence.

Israel’s battle on journalists who expose the injustice of its occupation and its abuse of Palestinians didn’t start with this newest battle, both. Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist and correspondent for Al Jazeera, was shot lifeless in Could 2022 whereas reporting on an Israel raid within the Jenin refugee camp. And Israel had killed dozens of media staff earlier than her.

I despair on the lack of Abu Akleh, and all the opposite courageous, admirable Palestinian journalists who had been silenced by Israeli bombs and bullets.

I mourn for Leqhashasha, Chamusse and all of the others who’ve been slain for exposing corruption or talking fact to energy.

My coronary heart bleeds for the household of Dzamara, and people of different “disappeared” journalists throughout the globe, who will doubtless by no means study what really occurred to their family members.

I really feel the deepest ache, nonetheless, for these journalists who I concern will meet comparable fates within the coming months and years.

Certainly, within the absence of robust authorized repercussions, there may be each likelihood that different journalists will go lacking or be killed by “unknown” folks in Zimbabwe.

The identical is true for these working in Lesotho, Mozambique and elsewhere.

And we all know Israeli bombs proceed to fall on Palestinian journalists as I write these traces.

When a journalist is killed or disappeared, individuals are fast to precise sympathy and voice condemnation. Following such information, our social media timelines at all times fill with messages honouring their lives and achievements. Governments, NGOs, and worldwide establishments problem statements, and vow to carry these accountable to account.

Phrases of empathy and condemnation are after all commendable, however what is required above all is straightforward: justice.

Within the case of Zimbabwe, the African Union and the Southern African Improvement Group (SADC) need to cease paying lip service to press freedom and demand solutions from President Emmerson Mnangagwa. And they need to take fast motion to stop the repeat of this atrocity.

To this finish, all related regional our bodies and the African Union ought to transfer to harmonise nationwide media laws and guarantee member states don’t enact legal guidelines that impede basic freedoms.

For a very long time, unrepentant rogue states have subjected independent-minded and principled journalists to state-orchestrated repression, violence and homicide.

That’s the reason the Worldwide Prison Court docket (ICC) should examine and prosecute the Israeli officers who’ve paved the best way for the deaths of 88 Palestinian journalists.

In December 2023, Reporters With out Borders (RSF) filed its second grievance with the ICC for alleged battle crimes dedicated by the Israeli military in opposition to Palestinian journalists. The RSF has concluded that Israel has been intentionally concentrating on Palestinian journalists to silence fact about its genocidal actions.

In an age the place misinformation and disinformation are commonplace, tens of millions of lives could be positioned in fixed jeopardy with out the work of fearless and principled fact tellers.

In a time the place autocrats like Mnangagwa consider they’re past reproach, the reality can’t turn into a scare commodity.

Nothing will convey again Leqhashasha, Chamusse or Abu Akleh.

I don’t consider Dzamara will ever return dwelling, both.

However they are going to without end stay our unsung heroes, like all of the others who misplaced their lives on this endless, international battle on the reality and fact tellers.

Let’s honour their lives by standing up for journalism and bringing their killers to justice.

Let’s honour their lives by doing the whole lot we will to ensure we don’t lose every other courageous fact tellers to mindless state violence.

The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.