(Credit: Washington Post, screenshot)

Zimbabwe is getting a “media commission to monitor media conduct and ethics,” but a pre-existing media council slammed the plans as “undemocratic,” Radio Voice of the People (VOP) reported.

According to Radio VOP, the planned council “is premised on the draconian statutory Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which media houses and journalists, have condemned in the past for suppressing freedom of the press and allowing government to control the country’s media.”

The council will work with the country’s media commission and set up an ethics code, Radio VOP reported the commission’s CEO Tafataona Mahoso said.

The Washington Post noted that Zimbabwe’s “independent Media Monitoring Council…criticized the establishment of the watchdog saying it represents further repression of press freedom.”