RESEARCH STARTER

History of Censorship in Zimbabwe

The history of censorship in Zimbabwe has evolved significantly from the colonial period to the present day. Initially, under British colonial rule, censorship was utilized to suppress dissent and control narratives that contradicted the prevailing views of white settlers, particularly regarding the indigenous heritage exemplified by Great Zimbabwe. Following the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith in 1965, a state of emergency allowed the government to impose stringent censorship laws, limiting media freedom and punishing those who disseminated opposing views.

With the establishment of a black majority government in 1980 under Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, the climate for media expression initially appeared more liberal. However, incidents of government intervention persisted, especially during political instability and challenges to Mugabe's authority. The enactment of a new constitution in 2013 promised reform and greater freedom of expression; however, remnants of colonial censorship laws remained, allowing the government to maintain control over media narratives.

In contemporary Zimbabwe, while international media access has improved and the internet provides alternatives for information dissemination, challenges such as government surveillance, licensing restrictions, and threats of violence continue to foster a culture of self-censorship among journalists. The complex interplay between the state's regulatory power and the quest for media freedom reflects ongoing tensions within Zimbabwe's political landscape.

Full Article

DESCRIPTION: Independent Central African Republic (formerly Rhodesia)

SIGNIFICANCE: Among Africa’s many newly independent nations, Zimbabwe has one of the oldest and most complex histories of government censorship

Zimbabwe takes its name from the ruins of a civilization (the word Zimbabwe means “a stone dwelling”) that thrived during the time of Europe’s Middle Ages. The largest of these ruins is known as Great Zimbabwe. Europeans had long heard legends of a great city in southern Africa, reputed to be the biblical place Ophir and the site of King Solomon’s mines. By the late 1800s, the ruins took on a new political symbolism when the British began active colonization. In 1890, the British businessman and imperialist Cecil Rhodes began bringing in pioneers and mercenaries for colonization, and the area became the self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1922.

The Zimbabwean ruins posed a problem for the White colonists. They justified taking control of land occupied by Africans by maintaining that the Africans were incapable of forming an advanced civilization without European direction. If Great Zimbabwe and the other ruined cities had been built by Africans, though, this would be evidence that Africans were capable of complex, urban societies. Cecil Rhodes saw the political importance of the ruins, and he hired the antiquarian Theodore Bent to excavate them to try to establish a non-African origin. Bent found no evidence of influences from any other continent, but he concluded that Great Zimbabwe had been built by Mediterranean people. This official unwillingness to recognize that the cities were local creations enhanced the “Mystery of Zimbabwe,” vague speculations that the cities had been constructed in ancient times by King Solomon, by the ancient Greeks, or by Arabs.

As movements for independence and Black political rights became more active, White government support for the Zimbabwe myth became more intense. By the 1960s, the colony of Rhodesia was under pressure from the British government to grant equality to Black citizens. Complaining that White and Black individuals were at vastly different levels of civilization, Rhodesia’s prime minister Ian Smith issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in November 1965.

Government control of archaeology increased following the UDI. In the same year as the declaration, the National Historical Monuments Commission stated that there was little doubt that Great Zimbabwe was the work of indigenous African people. In response, a member of the Rhodesian parliament denounced the commission and demanded that its findings be “corrected.”

In 1970, the Rhodesian government enacted censorship, preventing all official publications from stating as fact that Great Zimbabwe had been an African creation. For many archaeologists, the extreme censorship of their discipline became unbearable. Peter Garlake, the leading expert on the ruins of Zimbabwe, left the country in protest, only to return in 1981, following the establishment of a majority Black government.

Ian Smith’s Administration

Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front party came to power in 1964. One of the regime’s first acts was the creation of the position of the parliamentary secretary for information, who was to control all information from the government. Government press releases and reports became little more than state propaganda. Smith also appointed new members of the Board of Governors of Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation and established control over television broadcasting.

When Smith declared the independence of Rhodesia, the government also declared a state of emergency. The state of emergency gave the government the right to suppress criticism or opposition by force. Under the Emergency Powers Act, in 1967, the Rhodesian government enacted direct censorship of all news in the country. Even listening to disapproved radio broadcasts from abroad became illegal. At the end of 1967, the Smith government set up a Board of Censors to examine and regulate all types of media, and the board banned both domestic and foreign publications for moral as well as political reasons. Those who published objectionable materials could also be prosecuted, under the Official Secrets Act of 1970, for threatening national security.

The Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company, the major newspaper publishing corporation in Rhodesia, was a subsidiary of the Argus newspaper chain in South Africa. Its newspapers were oriented toward the White inhabitants of Rhodesia. Nevertheless, the papers of the Argus chain were opposed to the UDI and, therefore, were subject to heavy censorship. The Daily News, a paper not owned by the Argus chain, was owned and run by White individuals but sympathetic toward African nationalism and critical of the Rhodesian Front. As a result, the Smith government banned the Daily News in 1964. Reporters for the foreign media were also suppressed. In 1973, Rhodesian journalist Peter Niesewand was arrested for reports he had made to the British Press. He was sentenced to two years at hard labor for violation of the Official Secrets Act, and he was later deported to England.

Censorship Issues since 1980

There appears to have been much less censorship in Zimbabwe, as the country became known with the establishment of the Black majority government of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in 1980, than there was under the Rhodesian Smith regime. The official government policy statement on the media, “The Democratization of the Media in Independent Zimbabwe,” guaranteed the press freedom to publish. Nevertheless, there have been some incidents of government control of expression.

In February 1981, the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust took control of the country’s main newspapers. In June 1981, the government created the Zimbabwe Inter-Africa News Agency (ZIANA). Joshua Nkomo, chief political rival of Prime Minister Mugabe and then minister of home affairs, criticized the transfer of the press to the government, saying it would turn the press into the mouthpiece of Mugabe’s party.

Political instability often raised threats to freedom of expression, since Mugabe’s government has met with resistance from anti-government guerrillas. In 1984, as a result of guerrilla activity, the government imposed a ban on opposition party meetings in the center of the country. Criticism of the government’s treatment of guerrillas has also provoked threats of censorship. In 1986, Enos Nkala, who succeeded Nkomo as minister of home affairs, denounced Amnesty International as an enemy of the state and threatened anyone who might pass information to Amnesty.

Two years later, Nkala, by then the defense minister, became the center of a censorship controversy regarding corruption, rather than state security. The Bulawayo Chronicle accused government officials of corruption in the affair known as the “Willowgate scandal.” Nkala, the main target of the accusations, threatened to send the army to the newspaper headquarters to arrest the editor and deputy editor. Although the editors never suffered this fate, and the Zimbabwean government initiated an investigation of official corruption, the Chronicle’s editor was removed from his position and transferred to a non-reporting job.

In 2008, following a violent presidential runoff between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zanu PF and the Movement for Democratic Change created a coalition government, ostensibly to implement reforms such as media liberalization. A new constitution was adopted in 2013 and promised freedom of expression and information access. This includes the Cyber and Data Protection Act and the 2023 Criminal Law amendment known as the “Patriotic Act.”  However, the criminal code, which retains some colonial-era laws, has yet to reflect the changes in the constitution, and the state press has continued to voice pro-Mugabe views. In practice, journalists and media outlets have faced the same types of pressures they did under the former constitution. Journalists must be registered with the government and licensed through the Zimbabwe Media Commission. (Although this commission was established to license journalists and regulate standards, critics have accused it of favoring pro-government narratives and denying accreditation to independent or opposition-aligned journalists.) The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe has issued a few licenses for community radio stations; in fact, none of the twenty-five applicants in 2014 were awarded one. However, by 2026, at least 20 community radio stations were licensed. The government has broad powers of surveillance, can intercept telecommunications, and may restrict content before publication. Threats, police arrests, harassment, surveillance, and defamation or security-related laws have led to self-censorship. In 2017, Robert Mugabe was ousted from power through a military-assisted political transition. Emmerson Mnangagwa assumed the presidency, promising democratic reforms, including improvements in press freedom. However, critics argued that Mnangagwa’s government continued suppressing dissent through arrests, harassment, and the selective application of security laws.

Despite the restrictions on traditional media in Zimbabwe, international media organizations were allowed after the coalition government took office. The Internet also remains open in Zimbabwe, with access to international news unbarred for those who can log on. Smartphone penetration in Zimbabwe is high and has enabled everyday citizens to access outside information via voice, text messaging, or the Internet. However, during fuel protests in January 2019, the Zimbabwean government ordered an internet shutdown.

In 2020, Zimbabwe repealed the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and replaced it with the Freedom of Information Act, and licensed its first community radio stations.I In 2021, the Interception of Communications Act and Cyber and Data Protection Act formalized state surveillance. The 2023 “Patriotic Act” and the High Court’s 2025 ruling striking down its major provisions highlight the legal battle in Zimbabwe over the boundaries of dissent and national security. Despite widespread digital use, Freedom House reports a decline in internet freedom in Zimbabwe through 2024, citing punitive laws, surveillance, and crackdowns on online activism.


Bibliography

Alexander, Jocelyn. The Unsettled Land: State-Making & the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe, 1893-2003. Ohio UP, 2006.

“Analysis of the Newly Enacted Zimbabwe Media Commission Act.” Media Institute of Southern Africa, misa.org/blog/analysis-of-the-newly-enacted-zimbabwe-media-commission-act/. Accessed 4 May 2026.

“Beating Censorship in Zimbabwe.” Al Jazeera, 13 June 2012, www.aljazeera.com/program/the-listening-post/2012/6/13/beating-censorship-in-zimbabwe. Accessed 4 May 2026.

“Bill Watch 28/2023: The ‘Patriot Act.’” Veritas Zimbabwe, 20 July 2023, www.veritaszim.net/node/6459. Accessed 4 May 2026.

Garlake, Peter S. Great Zimbabwe. Stein, 1973.

Harris, Ashleigh. “‘The Diary of a Country in Crisis’: Zimbabwean Censorship and Adaptive Cultural Forms.” Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 47, no. 5, 2021, pp. 787–98, doi:10.1080/03057070.2021.1947025. Accessed 4 May 2026.

“Licensing of Community Radio Stations Step in the Right Direction.” MISA Zimbabwe, 18 Dec. 2020, zimbabwe.misa.org/2020/12/18/licensing-of-community-radio-stations-step-in-the-right-direction/. Accessed 4 May 2026.

Palmer, Robin H. Zimbabwe: A Land Divided. Oxfam, 1992.

“2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Zimbabwe.” U.S. Department of State, 2024, www.state.gov/reports/2024-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/zimbabwe/. Accessed 4 May 2026.

“Zimbabwe.” Freedom House, freedomhouse.org/country/zimbabwe. Accessed 4 May 2026.

Full Article

DESCRIPTION: Independent Central African Republic (formerly Rhodesia)

SIGNIFICANCE: Among Africa’s many newly independent nations, Zimbabwe has one of the oldest and most complex histories of government censorship

Zimbabwe takes its name from the ruins of a civilization (the word Zimbabwe means “a stone dwelling”) that thrived during the time of Europe’s Middle Ages. The largest of these ruins is known as Great Zimbabwe. Europeans had long heard legends of a great city in southern Africa, reputed to be the biblical place Ophir and the site of King Solomon’s mines. By the late 1800s, the ruins took on a new political symbolism when the British began active colonization. In 1890, the British businessman and imperialist Cecil Rhodes began bringing in pioneers and mercenaries for colonization, and the area became the self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1922.

The Zimbabwean ruins posed a problem for the White colonists. They justified taking control of land occupied by Africans by maintaining that the Africans were incapable of forming an advanced civilization without European direction. If Great Zimbabwe and the other ruined cities had been built by Africans, though, this would be evidence that Africans were capable of complex, urban societies. Cecil Rhodes saw the political importance of the ruins, and he hired the antiquarian Theodore Bent to excavate them to try to establish a non-African origin. Bent found no evidence of influences from any other continent, but he concluded that Great Zimbabwe had been built by Mediterranean people. This official unwillingness to recognize that the cities were local creations enhanced the “Mystery of Zimbabwe,” vague speculations that the cities had been constructed in ancient times by King Solomon, by the ancient Greeks, or by Arabs.

As movements for independence and Black political rights became more active, White government support for the Zimbabwe myth became more intense. By the 1960s, the colony of Rhodesia was under pressure from the British government to grant equality to Black citizens. Complaining that White and Black individuals were at vastly different levels of civilization, Rhodesia’s prime minister Ian Smith issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in November 1965.

Government control of archaeology increased following the UDI. In the same year as the declaration, the National Historical Monuments Commission stated that there was little doubt that Great Zimbabwe was the work of indigenous African people. In response, a member of the Rhodesian parliament denounced the commission and demanded that its findings be “corrected.”

In 1970, the Rhodesian government enacted censorship, preventing all official publications from stating as fact that Great Zimbabwe had been an African creation. For many archaeologists, the extreme censorship of their discipline became unbearable. Peter Garlake, the leading expert on the ruins of Zimbabwe, left the country in protest, only to return in 1981, following the establishment of a majority Black government.

Ian Smith’s Administration

Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front party came to power in 1964. One of the regime’s first acts was the creation of the position of the parliamentary secretary for information, who was to control all information from the government. Government press releases and reports became little more than state propaganda. Smith also appointed new members of the Board of Governors of Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation and established control over television broadcasting.

When Smith declared the independence of Rhodesia, the government also declared a state of emergency. The state of emergency gave the government the right to suppress criticism or opposition by force. Under the Emergency Powers Act, in 1967, the Rhodesian government enacted direct censorship of all news in the country. Even listening to disapproved radio broadcasts from abroad became illegal. At the end of 1967, the Smith government set up a Board of Censors to examine and regulate all types of media, and the board banned both domestic and foreign publications for moral as well as political reasons. Those who published objectionable materials could also be prosecuted, under the Official Secrets Act of 1970, for threatening national security.

The Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company, the major newspaper publishing corporation in Rhodesia, was a subsidiary of the Argus newspaper chain in South Africa. Its newspapers were oriented toward the White inhabitants of Rhodesia. Nevertheless, the papers of the Argus chain were opposed to the UDI and, therefore, were subject to heavy censorship. The Daily News, a paper not owned by the Argus chain, was owned and run by White individuals but sympathetic toward African nationalism and critical of the Rhodesian Front. As a result, the Smith government banned the Daily News in 1964. Reporters for the foreign media were also suppressed. In 1973, Rhodesian journalist Peter Niesewand was arrested for reports he had made to the British Press. He was sentenced to two years at hard labor for violation of the Official Secrets Act, and he was later deported to England.

Censorship Issues since 1980

There appears to have been much less censorship in Zimbabwe, as the country became known with the establishment of the Black majority government of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in 1980, than there was under the Rhodesian Smith regime. The official government policy statement on the media, “The Democratization of the Media in Independent Zimbabwe,” guaranteed the press freedom to publish. Nevertheless, there have been some incidents of government control of expression.

In February 1981, the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust took control of the country’s main newspapers. In June 1981, the government created the Zimbabwe Inter-Africa News Agency (ZIANA). Joshua Nkomo, chief political rival of Prime Minister Mugabe and then minister of home affairs, criticized the transfer of the press to the government, saying it would turn the press into the mouthpiece of Mugabe’s party.

Political instability often raised threats to freedom of expression, since Mugabe’s government has met with resistance from anti-government guerrillas. In 1984, as a result of guerrilla activity, the government imposed a ban on opposition party meetings in the center of the country. Criticism of the government’s treatment of guerrillas has also provoked threats of censorship. In 1986, Enos Nkala, who succeeded Nkomo as minister of home affairs, denounced Amnesty International as an enemy of the state and threatened anyone who might pass information to Amnesty.

Two years later, Nkala, by then the defense minister, became the center of a censorship controversy regarding corruption, rather than state security. The Bulawayo Chronicle accused government officials of corruption in the affair known as the “Willowgate scandal.” Nkala, the main target of the accusations, threatened to send the army to the newspaper headquarters to arrest the editor and deputy editor. Although the editors never suffered this fate, and the Zimbabwean government initiated an investigation of official corruption, the Chronicle’s editor was removed from his position and transferred to a non-reporting job.

In 2008, following a violent presidential runoff between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zanu PF and the Movement for Democratic Change created a coalition government, ostensibly to implement reforms such as media liberalization. A new constitution was adopted in 2013 and promised freedom of expression and information access. This includes the Cyber and Data Protection Act and the 2023 Criminal Law amendment known as the “Patriotic Act.”  However, the criminal code, which retains some colonial-era laws, has yet to reflect the changes in the constitution, and the state press has continued to voice pro-Mugabe views. In practice, journalists and media outlets have faced the same types of pressures they did under the former constitution. Journalists must be registered with the government and licensed through the Zimbabwe Media Commission. (Although this commission was established to license journalists and regulate standards, critics have accused it of favoring pro-government narratives and denying accreditation to independent or opposition-aligned journalists.) The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe has issued a few licenses for community radio stations; in fact, none of the twenty-five applicants in 2014 were awarded one. However, by 2026, at least 20 community radio stations were licensed. The government has broad powers of surveillance, can intercept telecommunications, and may restrict content before publication. Threats, police arrests, harassment, surveillance, and defamation or security-related laws have led to self-censorship. In 2017, Robert Mugabe was ousted from power through a military-assisted political transition. Emmerson Mnangagwa assumed the presidency, promising democratic reforms, including improvements in press freedom. However, critics argued that Mnangagwa’s government continued suppressing dissent through arrests, harassment, and the selective application of security laws.

Despite the restrictions on traditional media in Zimbabwe, international media organizations were allowed after the coalition government took office. The Internet also remains open in Zimbabwe, with access to international news unbarred for those who can log on. Smartphone penetration in Zimbabwe is high and has enabled everyday citizens to access outside information via voice, text messaging, or the Internet. However, during fuel protests in January 2019, the Zimbabwean government ordered an internet shutdown.

In 2020, Zimbabwe repealed the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and replaced it with the Freedom of Information Act, and licensed its first community radio stations.I In 2021, the Interception of Communications Act and Cyber and Data Protection Act formalized state surveillance. The 2023 “Patriotic Act” and the High Court’s 2025 ruling striking down its major provisions highlight the legal battle in Zimbabwe over the boundaries of dissent and national security. Despite widespread digital use, Freedom House reports a decline in internet freedom in Zimbabwe through 2024, citing punitive laws, surveillance, and crackdowns on online activism.


Bibliography

Alexander, Jocelyn. The Unsettled Land: State-Making & the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe, 1893-2003. Ohio UP, 2006.

“Analysis of the Newly Enacted Zimbabwe Media Commission Act.” Media Institute of Southern Africa, misa.org/blog/analysis-of-the-newly-enacted-zimbabwe-media-commission-act/. Accessed 4 May 2026.

“Beating Censorship in Zimbabwe.” Al Jazeera, 13 June 2012, www.aljazeera.com/program/the-listening-post/2012/6/13/beating-censorship-in-zimbabwe. Accessed 4 May 2026.

“Bill Watch 28/2023: The ‘Patriot Act.’” Veritas Zimbabwe, 20 July 2023, www.veritaszim.net/node/6459. Accessed 4 May 2026.

Garlake, Peter S. Great Zimbabwe. Stein, 1973.

Harris, Ashleigh. “‘The Diary of a Country in Crisis’: Zimbabwean Censorship and Adaptive Cultural Forms.” Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 47, no. 5, 2021, pp. 787–98, doi:10.1080/03057070.2021.1947025. Accessed 4 May 2026.

“Licensing of Community Radio Stations Step in the Right Direction.” MISA Zimbabwe, 18 Dec. 2020, zimbabwe.misa.org/2020/12/18/licensing-of-community-radio-stations-step-in-the-right-direction/. Accessed 4 May 2026.

Palmer, Robin H. Zimbabwe: A Land Divided. Oxfam, 1992.

“2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Zimbabwe.” U.S. Department of State, 2024, www.state.gov/reports/2024-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/zimbabwe/. Accessed 4 May 2026.

“Zimbabwe.” Freedom House, freedomhouse.org/country/zimbabwe. Accessed 4 May 2026.

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