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Police confiscate VOP equipment
MISA-Zimbabwe
December 15, 2005

Police details from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), who raided the VOP Offices this afternoon, have confiscated equipment and other materials from the station. Shorai Kariwa, a VOP senior officer told MISA-Zimbabwe that police details numbering fourteen were confiscating equipment from the VOP office. Kariwa described the office as their production office which has four computers, portable recorders and administration files. Other police officers are said to be going about Beverly Court building in Nelson Mandela Street armed with metal detectors. VOP reporters Maria Nyanyiwa, Nyasha Bosha and Kundai Mugwanda are being held captive inside the VOP offices and have been unreachable, as they have been told to switch off their mobile phones.

Background
State security agents raided the Voice of the People (VOP) radio station in Harare around 4pm today where they reportedly intimidated workers as they searched for documents and equipment at the station.

The state security agents demanded to see the transmitters and equipment that the station uses for its broadcasts. VOP, however, does not broadcast from Zimbabwe. The raid comes two weeks after the state security agents visited the VOP offices and demanded to see the station's director John Masuku and its editor Shorai Kariwa.

They were, however, not allowed in by security details at the radio station.

Kariwa confirmed the presence of the security agents and said they had also demanded to be shown the radio station's news transcripts.

The agents were still conducting searches at the station by 1730 hours.

The offices of the VOP which broadcasts on short-wave were bombed on 29 August 2002 during which property worth millions of dollars was destroyed.

MISA-Zimbabwe was unable to immediately contact Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights lawyers Otto Saki and Jacob Mafume, who rushed to the VOP offices upon being informed of the raid. According to Kariwa the security agents demanded that all phones be switched off.

The raid comes hard on the heels of statements by the Minister of Information and Publicity Dr Tichaona Jokonya who branded journalists working for the private media as "weapons of mass destruction" and willing tools of Western interests.

In a speech delivered at the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe's inaugural Consumer Journalists Awards on 13 December 2005, Jokonya reportedly claimed that journalists working for the private media were being paid by Western countries to rubbish President Robert Mugabe's government and needed to be monitored.

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