Human rights activists have launched a petition calling on South African insurance giant Old Mutual to withdraw its stake in Zimbabwe’s state-run publishing houses they accuse of spreading hate speeches and promoting political intolerance in the troubled southern African country.
Old Mutual confirmed this week that it was a major shareholder in Zimbabwe Newspapers (ZIMPAPERS), the publishing group that produces The Herald daily and The Sunday Mail which are accused of promoting political hatred.
According to People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) – a South African refugee rights group – Old Mutual is the second largest shareholder in ZIMPAPERS.
“It is important that people outside Zimbabwe understand that the propaganda in Zimbabwe is not limited to merely putting one party’s political position over the other.
“The public media has been used to incite hatred, to vilify groups of people in Zimbabwe, to lie and try and generate hatred and anger towards people,” read part of the petitioned circulated by the pressure group Sokwanele.
Sokwanele noted that the daily dosage of hate speeches spewed by the ZIMPAPERS titles was mostly to blame for the hatred and lack of tolerance demonstrated by Zimbabweans.
It said Old Mutual’s support for ZIMPAPERS has enabled Zimbabwe’s former ruling party “to get away with a heinous abuse of the human rights of free expression and free opinions in a country struggling to let freedom and democracy flourish, and to end violence.”
Source African Press Agency
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