Photographs by Linette Frewin

One of Zimbabwe’s best known singers, Chiwoniso Maraire, has died aged 37. More from the BBC here and you can share your memories of Chi on their page.

On: Monday 5, Tuesday 6, and Wednesday 7 August 2013
For: Boys and girls aged 6 years and above
From: 9am to 1230pm
At: Kifoc at the Kabin, 2 Canterbury Rd, Kensington (close to Kensington shops)
Bring: Comfy gear/shoes. A notebook and a pack snack.
Cost: $50, discount for siblings

We offer a chance for children to learn performance skills that work wonders for their self confidence, concentration and social skills, through the use of creative drama, singing, dancing and photo modeling, all under one roof, to bring out their true potential

All activities are filmed and shown in a safe and welcoming atmosphere

Enrolment has begun so if you wish to register your child/children, please contact Bev on Telephone 04 570869 or 0733 402 696

Email: bmathison [at] mango [dot] zw

Get active!

If you have had political posters pasted on your wall or gate, and if you don’t want them there, stand up to the abuse of power and remove them. It is your right to do so. Don’t be intimidated.

You can also email the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) on: inquiry [at] zec [dot] gov [dot] zw and file a report.

You add, we multiply!

That Mugabe is a bully is now a historical fact, and the he brooks no criticism or censure from fellow African presidents is a fact that has made a spoof out of Nepad’s much vaunted African/Peer Review Mechanism.

And it’s even worse when African diplomats and presidents alike are very much awake to the fact that Mugabe can indeed tell them off despite all efforts to knock sense into his head.

This became apparent with the arrival of Nkosazana Zuma-Dlamini into the country where she said there was no guarantee that African Union Mission chairperson Olusegun Obasanjo was going to be allowed into Zimbabwe, “saying it depends on whether Government will allow him.”

“I think he will come. If he is allowed he will come. They allowed me to come, that is all I’m saying.”

Why go ahead with the goddamn charade then when it is already known that even African observers are not viewed too kindly, not by government but, by Zanu PF?

In recent months there has been a continent-wide spike in reports of the abduction, shooting, imprisonment and harassment of journalists during the course of their duties across Africa, and it raises serious questions about commitments all these countries ostensibly made when they appanded their names to the Windhoek Declaration, for example in ensuring the safety of journalists and freedom of the press.

From Burkina Faso, that notorious land infamously known for the 1998 gruesome killing and burning of journalist Norbet Zongo, to our neighbor Zambia where “ailing” Michael Sata is exhibiting Robert Mugabe’s hyper-sensitivity to criticism, to our very own where one journalist answered a knock at the door of his home only to be brutally assaulted by enigmatic characters who are still at large.

In the Gambia, government has moved to restrict internet freedom, while in Gabon, government shut down newspapers critical to the State, and one wonders why it is that while others are celebrating the promise of online platforms and privately owned newspapers as the present and future of freedom of information and unfettered news production, some behemoths imagine they will succeed in stopping a revolution whose time has come, to borrow a phrase.

And indeed Zimbabwean journalists have said they fear for their lives during these coming elections, with one senior journalist actually advising junior colleagues that they should move in packs wherever they are assigned as there is safety in numbers.

Such advice is indeed very useful, knowing the treatment journalists have received even outside election periods.

But numbers of people armed with pens and notebooks are no match to numbers armed with sjamboks and cudgels!

And many of the countries who have seen a rise in the harassment of journalists, are typically having elections this year or in 2014, and they are the same regimes that are keen to see the legitimating of their governments by other countries be it the AU, the same AU that has made commitments to press freedom, or international community, but still do everything in their power to invite adverse reports by literally giving the press a beating.

And then these people get someone commenting that Africa is a dangerous place to work as a journalist, yes, viewing the continent through that prism of it being one huge homogenous space, and scream exaggeration!

But then, not everything has to make sense. It is okay when it only suits the mandarins in charge of “regulating” media space, and one will recall the “promise” made by Mahoso that private TV players will be licenced in 2103, only to have the same people condemning the appearance of 1st TV. What tosh!

Reflecting on the treatment on journalists in Zimbabwe, I recalled an incident reported a few years ago where a reporter from a privately-owned newspaper was assaulted by war veterans or Zanu PF activists (but then what’s the difference?) while “colleagues” from the State media witnessed it with unbridled glee and wondered if there is any hope for Zimbabwe’s media landscape to be a safe working space from 31 July to and beyond, but then this ain’t no time for pessism.