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IN the first use of its new media law, the Zimbabwean government has threatened to prosecute the editor of the country's only private daily over an article reporting an international call for fresh elections, papers said yesterday.

The independent Daily News and state-run Herald said Information Minister Jonathan Moyo had written to Geoff Nyarota, the editor of the Daily News, asking him to correct "falsehoods" or face legal action under the country's newly enacted media law.

Last week the Daily News reported that the ACP-EU Joint Assembly - which groups parliamentarians from the 77-member African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries and the 15-nation European Union - had passed a resolution on March 21 calling for fresh presidential polls in Zimbabwe.

The resolution, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, says: "The ACP-EU joint parliamentary assembly calls for new elections to be held within the year under the auspices of the Commonwealth and international community so as to allow all the people of Zimbabwe the freedom to elect the president of their choice."

It was quoted entirely accurately by the Daily News.
But Moyo said in his letter to Nyarota the article on the ACP-EU resolution was "entirely based on your fabrication", the Herald reported.

"There is every reason to believe that you knew only too well that the information you continue to publish is in fact false as there is no record to support your claim," the letter said.

Under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, signed into law on March 15 by President Robert Mugabe, papers can be deemed to have abused journalistic privilege by falsifying or fabricating stories and are liable to two years' imprisonment or a fine of US$1804.

Moyo has asked the Daily News to correct the article or face legal action.

But Nyarota has refused to retract the story, arguing that it is accurate.

"I would rather go to jail, if it pleases the honourable minister, than be forced by him to publicly correct a story that is 100-per cent correct," Nyarota said in the Daily News. - Nampa-AFP