Guardian journalist expelled from Zimbabwe

A US journalist accused of being critical of Zimbabwe’s government was pushed into a car by police yesterday and driven to the airport to be deported, the journalist and his lawyer said.

Andrew Meldrum, 51, a correspondent for the London-based Guardian newspaper who has lived in Zimbabwe for 23 years, said he was issued a “prohibited immigrant” order by immigration officials at their Harare offices.

“I am being deported now,” he said.

Mr Meldrum was forced into a waiting government car by a group of uniformed and paramilitary police wanting to prevent him from speaking to waiting reporters.

“This is not the action of a legitimate government. It is afraid of a free press. It is afraid of independent and critical reporting,” Mr Meldrum shouted before being dragged to the car.

Mr Meldrum, the fourth foreign journalist to be expelled from Zimbabwe in the past two years, was acquitted last year on charges he published false information about Zimbabwe, violating stringent new media laws.

The government immediately gave him a deportation order. A Supreme Court appeal against that order remained pending.

On Tuesday, immigration officials seized Mr Meldrum’s US passport containing his long-term Zimbabwe residence permit, accusing him of “continuing to write bad things” about Zimbabwe.

Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said Meldrum was ordered to report on Friday to the immigration offices, where he was told he had violated the terms of his residence permit.

She was seeking a High Court order to declare his deportation illegal because of the pending Supreme Court case.

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, called the deportation “a political act which should invite the strongest possible condemnation from the international community”.

“The Zimbabwean authorities have been persecuting Andrew for the last 12 months and their clear determination to deport him can only be interpreted as a concerted effort to stifle any free press within the country,” he said.

President Robert Mugabe’s increasingly authoritarian government has cracked down on the independent press, the judiciary and opposition officials during three years of political and economic chaos.

At least 16 journalists have been arrested under the new Access to Information laws, which democracy activists say are being used to stifle criticism. Most foreign journalists have been denied visas to enter Zimbabwe.

The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders had called on the government to stop its continuous harassment of Mr Meldrum.

Mr Mugabe is on the group’s worldwide list of 42 “predators of press freedom.”