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Film maker arrested
Media Institute of Southern Africa - Zimbabwe Chapter (MISA-Zimbabwe)
March 25, 2004

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Simon Bright a Zimbabwean independent film maker was on 19 March arrested on allegations of having participated in the production of BBC documentary, Panorama, which focused on Zimbabwe’s controversial national youth training service.

Beatrice Mtetwa, Bright's lawyer said her client was arrested at the Harare International Airport as he tried to board an Air Zimbabwe plane to London. He was detained for the weekend by police and questioned on whether he worked for "outside broadcasters", Mtetwa said.

The lawyer said Bright was asked whether he was involved in making the BBC's recent Panorama programme that claimed thousands of Zimbabwean youths are being trained in special camps to torture and intimidate opponents of President Robert Mugabe's government.

"The suspicion is that he was involved in that" Panorama documentary, Mtetwa said, but denied any link. Bright was released on 22 March, in the afternoon, after being charged under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) for communicating "a statement which is wholly or materially false", Mtetwa added. Mtetwa said that Bright focuses on development and conservation issues, and was taking a tape to clients in London who had commissioned him to make a documentary on a game park in southern Zimbabwe.

Mtetwa said police were "unable to say what was offensive" about the tape, adding that various government departments were involved in the making of the documentary.

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