As media laws preclude foreigners from owning shares in media companies, the Zimbabwe Independent and Standard may be shut down. It has been argued that part owner, Trevor Ncube, is a Zambian by descent and therefore required to renounce that country's citizenship in terms of Zambian law to qualify for a Zimbabwean passport.

Several newspapers including the Daily News and its sister paper, The Daily News on Sunday, the Tribune and the Weekly Times were have already been shut down whilst the Financial Gazette, Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror have been taken over by the intelligence services in a publicly-funded covert move.

Ncube contends that his father, while Zambian born, was a bona fide citizen of Zimbabwe and that, plus his own Zimbabwean birth, should make him automatically Zimbabwean without further requirements. Also, he argues that his mother is Zimbabwean by birth, while his father is a Zambian but with a Zimbabwean national registration identity.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa has been critical of the Zimbabwean government’s use and application of Aippa, insisting that the law only targets privately-owned papers critical of Mugabe’s regime.

Misa describes the law as a “leading weapon of the government and the ruling Zanu PF party in their ongoing campaign to stifle independent media reporting in Zimbabwe.”

Source: newzimbabwe.com