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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Index of results, reports, press stmts and articles on March 31 2005 General Election - post Mar 30
Open
letter to the executive secretary of the Southern Africa Development Community
(SADC)
Reporters
sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
April 07, 2005
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13131
Toby Harden and
Julian Simmonds of the London-based Sunday Telegraph have been
detained for the past week. Every day they are exhibited handcuffed and
in prison uniform. Reporters Without Borders calls on the executive secretary
of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in an open letter
to use all his influence to have them released.
Dr. Prega
Ramsamy
Executive Secretary
Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC)
Gaborone,
Botswana
Paris,
7 April 2005
Dear Dr. Ramsamy,
Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom organization,
would like to draw your attention to the government of Zimbabwe's disgraceful
treatment of British journalists Toby Harden and Julian Simmonds
of the London-based Sunday Telegraph, who have been detained for
the past week in Norton, 40 km from the capital, Harare.
They were arrested on 31 March, the day of legislative elections. Since
then they have often been exhibited by the Zimbabwean authorities for
a predictable trial. They are accused of breaking the immigration laws
by not having valid visas, and of violating the sadly notorious Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the tyrannical nature
of which we have condemned since it was adopted in 2002.
We hesitate to discuss the substance of the charges as the legal procedures
alone have been so shocking. Two men whose only crime, in essence, was
to go a little too close to a polling station with a camera risk being
unjustly sentenced to several years in prison. The Zimbabwean authorities
clearly want to set an example for all those inclined to criticize them
or at least to look a little more closely at the catastrophic situation
of a country that has taken a nationalistic, paranoid and repressive course.
We are moreover outraged by the way Harden and Simmonds have been exhibited
handcuffed to each other and in prison uniform, treated as criminals and
accused by prosecution witnesses who are ruling party activists.
Were they in Zimbabwe as tourists or to work as journalists? It does not
really matter, in our view. Two men have been thrown in prison for asking
voters questions and taking photos of what was happening around them.
That apparently constitutes a crime in Zimbabwe, especially if one has
not been approved by the thought tribunal known as the Media and Information
Commission (MIC) and if one "blasphemes" against President Robert Mugabe.
Leaving aside our clearly negative assessment of the climate in which
this election took place and our disgust at the way Zimbabwe treats independent
and foreign journalists, we would like to ask you to intervene on behalf
of Harden and Simmonds. We urge you as executive secretary of the Southern
Africa Development Community (SADC) to do everything in your power to
persuade Zimbabwe to let them return home as free men as soon as possible.
Southern Africa's honour is being publicly stained at this moment in a
prison in Norton.
I thank you in advance for attending to this request.
Sincerely,
Robert Ménard
Secretary-General
Bureau Afrique / Africa
desk
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
5, rue Geoffroy-Marie
75009 Paris, France
Tel : (33) 1 44 83 84 84
Fax : (33) 1 45 23 11 51
Email : afrique@rsf.org / africa@rsf.org
Web : www.rsf.org
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