Back to Index

Photojournalist Arrested
MISA-Zimbabwe
October 15, 2004

Desmond Kwande, a photojournalist with the privately-run Daily Mirror, was arrested outside the High Court in Harare on 15 October 2004 just after the acquittal of opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, on treason charges.

Kwande was on his way to the Daily Mirror offices when he was stopped by members of the riot police who demanded he handover his camera for "vetting".

Brian Mangwende, the news editor of the Daily Mirror told MISA-Zimbabwe that Kwande had been bundled into a police open truck and driven to Harare Central police station around 12 noon.

"The information we have at the moment is that the police said they wanted to vet the pictures he had taken," he said.

Mangwende said they had since dispatched their lawyer to Harare Central police to try and secure Kwande's release. The photo-journalist was still detained at around 4pm today.

"We also fear that our assistant editor Tichaona Chifamba, who was following up on Kwande's arrest could have met with a similar fate as he has not reported back to the office and is not answering his cellphone," he said.

Heavily-armed policemen had earlier in the morning, thrown a tight security net around the High Court Buildings while two fighter jets were deployed over the city's skies ahead of Judge President Paddington Garwe's judgment in the trial in which Tsvangirai was being accused of plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe.

Kwande's ordeal comes barely a week after he was arrested together with photojournalists Tsvangirai Mukwazhi and Howard Burditt while covering a demonstration outside Parliament Buildings in Harare.

The three journalists spent a night in police cells following their arrest on 5 October 2004 before their release the next day without being charged.

They were arrested while covering a demonstration by members of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) pressure group.

The women were protesting against the Non-Governmental Organisations Bill. The bill which has since been tabled before parliament seeks to ban foreign funding for Ngos involved in human rights and governance issues.

Visit the MISA -Zimbabwe fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP