Journalists arrested under new media law

Three journalists in Zimbabwe have been arrested under the country's controversial new media law over a story that incorrectly alleged ruling party youths beheaded an opposition supporter, news reports said on Wednesday.

US journalist Andrew Meldrum working for a British newspaper in Harare was arrested on Wednesday and taken to the central police station in the capital. He was accused of abuse of journalistic privileges and publishing false information under the tough Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

The charges relate to an article published last week in Zimbabwe's only privately-owned newspaper, Daily News, that alleged a woman was decapitated by supporters of President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party last month.

Meldrum's arrest followed the detention in police custody on Tuesday of the two reporters who wrote the Daily News article, Lloyd Mudiwa and Collin Chiwanza.

The paper last week reported that Brandina Tadyanemhandu was decapitated in Mashonaland West province by pro-government militias who allegedly forced her two daughters to watch the killing.

The newspaper subsequently established that the story had been fabricated.

Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which had initially confirmed the report, said in a statement published in the Daily News on Tuesday that the party believed Tadyanemhandu's husband had made up the story in a bid to extract money from the MDC.

Sarah Chiumbu of the watchdog Media Institute of Southern Africa told IRIN: "The arrest of the journalists is not justified, as far as we're concerned, under a law we're contesting. That's why MISA is calling for a voluntary media council to address these kinds of issues, rather than having journalists arrested and treated like criminals."

If convicted, all three journalists could be liable to a US $1,800 fine or up to two years in prison.