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Photographers Arrested
MISA-Zimbabwe
October 05, 2004

View photographs of protest and arrests

Three photo-journalists, Tsvangirai Mukwazhi, Desmond Kwande and Howard Burditt, were on 5 October 2004 arrested outside Parliament Building in Harare while covering a demonstration by women protestors demonstrating against the proposed Non-Governmental Organisations Bill.

The three were taken to Harare Central Police Station where they were still being detained almost three hours after their arrest around 3pm.

Mukwazhi and Burditt are freelance photo-journalists while Kwande works for the privately-owned Daily Mirror.

Several of the women protestors who are members of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), were also arrested shortly after they had delivered a petition to the House opposing the Bill.

The Bill, was however, not tabled as expected when Parliament resumed sitting today for the final session of the Fifth Parliament of Zimbabwe which is expected to debate the Bill before it is passed into law.

The arrest of the WOZA members on 5 October 2004 comes exactly a week after 52 of the women protestors were arrested in Chegutu while marching from Bulawayo to Harare to protest against the Bill. They were held in police custody for three days before a magistrate ruled that they had no case to answer and ordered their release.

The proposed Bill will ban foreign funding to Ngos involved in human rights and government issues and requires all private voluntary organisations to register with a government-appointed regulatory council.

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