{
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    {
      "slug": "2023-zimbabwe-patriotic-act-criminalizes-foreign-contact",
      "title": "Zimbabwe's Patriotic Act criminalizes journalists' contact with foreign governments",
      "occurred_on": "2023-07-14",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "ZW",
      "country_name": "Zimbabwe",
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        "secrets_and_espionage_laws"
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      "leader_slug": "emmerson-mnangagwa",
      "leader_name": "Emmerson Mnangagwa",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The bill passed weeks before Zimbabwe's August 2023 general election, at a time when the government accused foreign-linked civil-society and media figures of working to undermine it ahead of the vote.",
      "outcome": "sustained",
      "outcome_on": "2023-07-14",
      "outcome_note": "President Mnangagwa signed the bill into law despite CPJ's call for a veto; a court challenge by journalists did not block it.",
      "stage": "punish",
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        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 124th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
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      "era": "2020s",
      "granularity": "granular",
      "status": "in_effect",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed the Patriotic Act, which criminalizes meeting foreign governments or officials with intent to harm Zimbabwe's sovereignty, with penalties up to death for advocating armed intervention and up to ten years for supporting sanctions, weeks before the country's 2023 general election.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2023-zimbabwe-patriotic-act-criminalizes-foreign-contact"
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    {
      "slug": "2005-zimbabwe-court-refuses-daily-news-accreditation",
      "title": "Zimbabwe: the High Court refuses to accredit Daily News journalists under the media registration law",
      "occurred_on": "2005-05-12",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "ZW",
      "country_name": "Zimbabwe",
      "continent": "africa",
      "jurisdiction": "ZW",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "credential_control",
      "tactics": [
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      "leader_slug": "robert-mugabe",
      "leader_name": "Robert Mugabe",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The Daily News, Zimbabwe's largest independent newspaper, had been closed since September 2003 after the Supreme Court found it unregistered under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), a 2002 law requiring every media outlet and journalist to register with the government.",
      "outcome": "upheld",
      "outcome_on": "2005-05-12",
      "outcome_note": "The High Court upheld the requirement that the publisher be registered before its journalists could be accredited; the paper was not relicensed until 2010.",
      "stage": "punish",
      "ladder_note": "Journalists at a named newspaper were denied the individual credential needed to work at all, conditioned on a separate corporate registration the government withheld for years.",
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 124,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 124th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "2000s",
      "granularity": "granular",
      "status": "historical",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "Zimbabwe's High Court ruled that Daily News journalists could not be accredited to work as reporters until their newspaper's publisher had itself been registered with the government's Media and Information Commission.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2005-zimbabwe-court-refuses-daily-news-accreditation"
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