You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Africa: Subsaharan
4 Journalists Flee Bob-Land
2005-02-23
Lucky bastards.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Four journalists working for international news organizations have fled Zimbabwe after they were threatened with arrest during police raids on several news offices.

Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organization, the country's secret police, threatened the journalists with arrest for transmitting "material prejudicial to the state," and alleged they were spies. The raids and subsequent threats of arrest were seen as an attempt ahead of the March 31 parliamentary elections to silence the foreign media, one of the last independent voices remaining in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe forced the country's only independent daily newspaper, the Daily News, to close last year despite court orders that it be allowed to reopen. All other broadcast news and daily newspapers in the country are controlled by the state.

On Feb. 15, 10 police officers searched the office shared by Angus Shaw, a freelancer who contributes to The Associated Press, Jaan Raath, who contributes to the Times of London and Bryan Latham who contributes to Bloomberg. A fourth journalist, Cornelius Nduna, a Zimbabwean freelance television producer who works for a number of foreign news organizations, left the country after secret police raided his office a week earlier and said they were looking for him.

The police, who did not have a warrant, searched the office of Shaw, Raath and Latham, and examined the computers over the objections of a lawyer for the journalists, Beatrice Mtetwa, who was present during the search. Police returned two days later with a search warrant that said they had grounds to believe the journalists had filed false stories "prejudicial to the state" and that they had illegal communications equipment. The police also alleged the journalists were working illegally without a license from the government.

Under Zimbabwe's tough media laws, a story considered "prejudicial to the state" or working without applying for a government license is punishable by imprisonment.
That's kinda like a "Soviet era" law, isn't it?
The journalists denied any wrongdoing and were able to present evidence that they had applied for government licenses to work as journalists. No warrants were issued for their arrests. However, the three journalists, all Zimbabwean, decided to leave the country after police told Mtetwa that they would return and arrest the journalists.
Posted by:Steve White

#1  From yesterday with minor revisions

To all - The new anthem of The People's Republic of Zim-Bob-Me, formerly Zimbabwe :

I-come-a-zimBob-zimBob-starvin'
I-come-a-zimBob-starvin'-you
I-come-a-zimBob-zimBob-shootin'
I-come-a-zimBob-shoot-you-dead

See them there, the starving masses,
See him there, the well fed chief,
ZimBob chief, chief, chief...
Posted by: Ogeretla 2005   2005-02-23 11:52:20 AM  

00:00