Police raid independent radio station

A police raid on a private radio station in Zimbabwe has been condemned as an attack on media freedom. Police and officials from the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) on Thursday raided the country's only private broadcasting company, confiscated computers and arrested three Voice of the People (VOP) reporters in the capital, Harare. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said this showed the government's "utter intolerance toward anyone challenging the state's monopoly on news and opinion". Jacob Mafume, a lawyer for the radio station, told IRIN that the reporters - Maria Nyanyiwa, Takunda Gwanda and Nyasha Bosha - were taken into custody and charged under the controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), and the Broadcasting Act. "The journalists were told that they violated the law by practising without accreditation, and that their station was also not licensed," said Mafume. He said the journalists were likely to appear in court on Monday. Under the Broadcasting Act radio and television companies are required to obtain licenses from the BAZ. The shortwave radio station is one of only two that have managed to circumvent Zimbabwe's repressive media laws by using transmitters outside the country to carry their programmes - VOP beams its signal into Zimbabwe from the Netherlands, and the station has reporters and stringers throughout the country. Zimbabwean broadcasters unable to run studios in the country because of stringent conditions of the Broadcasting Act set up foreign-based radio stations. Most of the station's programming is in Zimbabwe's two local languages, Shona and Ndebele, placing it among the few independent media able to reach large rural populations who have no access to urban newspapers. Zimbabwe has four radio stations and one television station, all government-controlled. VOP's offices were also firebombed in August 2002. The raid on the private broadcaster was carried out barely 48 hours after an attack by Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya on the privately owned media in Zimbabwe, which he accused of being paid by Western countries to tarnish the image of President Robert Mugabe and his government. Jokonya threatened to take unspecified but tough measures against the small but vibrant privately owned media. CPJ executive director Ann Cooper condemned the raid and "harassment" of VOP staff. "VOP was founded by former employees of the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. Its employees have long faced harassment and intimidation from Zimbabwean authorities," she noted. "CPJ records show that [Thursday's] raid closely resembled a similar raid on VOP in July 2002, when police searched the VOP offices for a transmitter, broadcasting equipment, and other evidence that VOP was violating the Broadcasting Services Act of 2001."