Academic Freedom and Human Rights in Zimbabwe

Jabulani Moyo Academic Freedom and Human Rights in Zimbabwe THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ZIMBABWE HAS HAD A FUNDAMENTALLY negative im pact on academic freedom and has significantly reduced the scope for free inquiry. The high level of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe has also put scholars at risk. These “endangered minds” have been tortured, killed, or maimed for their courage to speak truth to power. A significant number of Zimbabwean scholars have gone into exile for their own safety. This process has affected the country’s universities profoundly—some of its best intellectual capital is now in exile. For the past 30 years, Zimbabwe had been a recognized center of academic excellence in Africa, but since the crisis began, some of the universities have closed or are operating below capacity. Over the past 15 years, the governm ent of Zimbabwe has actively put in place legislation that seeks to lim it the country’s academic space for free inquiry. One of the most draconian of this raft of laws in the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), which, inter alia, makes it very difficult for scholars to carry out field research. This is especially true in the rural Zimbabwean countryside, which President Robert Mugabe and his party, the Zimbabwe African National UnionPatriotic Front (ZANU-PF), consider to be its core political constitu­ ency. University professors and their research assistants continue to be tortured and harassed and even killed for attem pting to collect primary data, on any issue, in Zimbabwe. University researchers on social research Vol 76 : No 2 : Summer 2009 611 numerous occasions have been abducted by Mugabe’s security agents, their data confiscated. Under POSA, three or more people constitute a “crowd” and thus an “illegal gathering” under the law. In essence, it is also illegal to orga­ nize an academic conference, workshop, seminar, and so forth. Police clearance is required even to hold an academic workshop! In most cases, this clearance is not granted. Workshop organizers are expected to submit the conference program, the list of expected attendees, and an application letter to the police superintendent of the suburb or town­ ship where the meeting is supposed to take place. The actual process of applying for police clearance takes an average of two months for a onehour workshop. This is clearly ridiculous, but for Mugabe it is a neces­ sary control strategy to maintain tabs on academics and keep track of the kinds of discourse taking place in the academia. It is also an opportu­ nity to Mugabe’s notorious spies (the Central Intelligence Organization) to eavesdrop on such seminars, compile reports, and endanger the lives o f academics organizing and participating in such workshops. This obviously limits the scope of free inquiry in Zimbabwe. Another law that seriously threatens academics in Zimbabwe is the Access to Information and Privacy Protection Act (AIPPA). This law regulates the generation and flow of information in Zimbabwe. For example, all journalists operating in Zimbabwe are required to register with a government-controlled media council. This council can revoke media house licenses at its own discretion. They sometimes refuse registration of journalists or academics who are perceived to be “anti­ government. It is under AIPPA that key Western media such as CNN and the BBC are officially banned from reporting in Zimbabwe. For those in the academia, this law also has even deeper implications: it is illegal to criticize the president of Zimbabwe. How can a professor of political science in Zimbabwe write anything about the political crisis in Zimbabwe without inevitably being critical of the man who is at the core of Zimbabwe’s crisis, Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president? So far, scores of academics, journalists, and ordinary Zimbabweans have been arrested and tortured under this law. In other words, under 612 social research AIPPA, Zimbabwean scholars are barred from writing and talking about the crisis in their own country. As part of his effort to control free inquiry, Mugabe has made himself, under law, the president of all state universities in Zimbabwe. It is imperative to note that Zimbabwe’s key universities are state universities, including its largest, oldest, and most prestigious univer­ sity, the University of Zimbabwe. Mugabe...