More journalists detained

Two journalists were detained by police on Sunday following the publication of a story in the ‘Zimbabwe Mirror’ last October about the death of a soldier serving with Zimbabwean forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Media sources told IRIN on Tuesday that reporter Grace Kwinjeh and publisher Ibbo Mandaza were to appear in court later in the day. Meanwhile, the former and current managing editors of the newspaper, Farai Mungazi and Fernando Goncalves who were held with them, were released on Monday.

Their detention followed a weekend television broadcast by President Robert Mugabe in which he turned down an appeal by four Supreme Court judges to investigate the detention of two other journalists who were allegedly tortured by military police demanding their sources on a story about an alleged coup plot in the army.

“I’m quite sure that the journalists held this weekend were not tortured and there is no question of them being handed over to the army,” one of the sources said. Another media source told IRIN that events in the last few weeks have led to the police playing their proper role. He said the army was not directly involved in holding the four.

“But the Act they are being charged under is draconian. It was tailored in the 1960s to suppress African nationalism,” he said.
Meanwhile, the international press watchdog, Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF), protested the action against the journalists in a letter to Mugabe demanding their release.

“As far as we know, they merely exercised their right to inform as guaranteed in many international treaties ratified by Zimbabwe,” RSF General Secretary Robert Menard said in the letter. “Moreover, our organisation urges you to do everything in your power to pursue and punish those who tortured the journalists Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto on 19 January.”