IFJ Condemns “New Media Terror” as Mugabe Police Hold Journalists
The International Federation of Journalists today condemned the Zimbabwe government for unleashing “a new wave of
intimidation and terror against media” in advance of hotly contested elections to take place on 31 March.
The IFJ was responding to the arrest of three foreign correspondents in Harare yesterday.
“For the last two years, Zimbabwe’s media have been in a state of censorship and paralysis”, said Aidan White, the
General Secretary of the IFJ. “These latest arrests signal a new wave of intimidation and media terror by the regime of
Robert Mugabe. Journalists around the world rightly condemn these latest attacks”.
Yesterday, officers from the police's law and order section and agents of the government's Central Intelligence
Organization (CIO) raided the offices and arrested Brian Latham, Angus Shaw and Jaan Raath, three senior correspondents
for leading international news agencies. These arrests occur in an increasing atmosphere of threats against the media
before next month's election.
According to local sources, the three journalists were still detained at Harare Central police station by late last
night. The police are accusing the journalists of working without being accredited by the government's Media and
Information Commission. The three journalists could be jailed for up to two years if found guilty but their lawyer said
their arrest was a "clear case of harassment and intimidation".
Raath works for the Times of London, Shaw writes for Associated Press while Latham writes for several South African
papers.
According to the state's repressive press laws, journalists can be jailed for up to two years if found guilty of
reporting or writing falsehoods. The authorities declared that foreign correspondents could apply for accreditation to
cover the upcoming election but that there was no guarantee that all wishing to report on the poll would be allowed to
do so.