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Continued
rights abuses perpetrated by state security agents
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-33
Monday August 14th 2006 - Sunday August 20th
2006
THE government media’s reluctance to
report issues that underpin local and international concerns over
the country’s bad governance was illustrated by their silence on
the continued rights abuses perpetrated by state security agents
against members of the public and perceived government opponents.
For example, none of the nine stories
on new cases of rights violations carried in the media during the
week implicating security agents appeared in the government media.
All were featured in the privately
owned media.
These included the harassment of travellers
by the police and national youths under the Reserve Bank’s controversial
‘Project Sunrise’, and the arrest, assault and "torture"
of various individuals, among them members of the opposition and
civic organisations by the army and the police. In one of the stories,
The Standard (20/8) reported that members of the army had
severely assaulted and "tortured" Lupane
villagers after their cattle "strayed" into
a maize field planted under government’s Operation Maguta.
The same paper carried letters in which
two readers reported separate incidents alleging assault and torture
of members of the public by the Chinhoyi police.
Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa also reported
more cases of excessive police action.
SW Radio Africa (15/8), for example,
reported that the police had forced some women "returning
from a religious retreat" to remove their "bras
and underwear" at a roadblock in Plumtree searching
for money.
But it was not only ordinary members
of the public who fell victim to such abuse.
Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa (16/8)
reported that the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions, Wellington Chibebe, had been assaulted at another
police roadblock before being arrested.
However, the following morning The
Herald projected Chibebe as the one who assaulted the "cops"
after refusing to be searched.
The paper gave the impression that
the unionist had assaulted several policemen, but only mentioned
one officer. Neither did it balance the reports with Chibebe’s side
of the story, preferring to rely solely on the police’s narrative.
Subsequently, SW Radio Africa (18/8)
dismissed the paper’s report as part of the authorities’ efforts
to limit the damage caused by the incident.
It quoted Chibebe’s lawyer Alec Muchadehama
insisting that contrary to official claims, it was actually the
police that had assaulted the unionist when he questioned the "legality
of currency searches". He alleged that it was only
after "one of the policemen present at the roadblock
identified the union leader that police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena
was alerted to the potentially damaging incident".
Reportedly, Bvudzijena then allegedly
"told the officers to claim Chibebe had assaulted one
of them and that he refused to co-operate at the roadblock"
and ordered his detention.
The government media’s attempts to
conceal the extent to which Zimbabwe has become a police state also
resulted in these media censoring President Mugabe’s crude threats
against the opposition during his Defence Forces’ Day speech.
For instance, Spot FM (15/08, 1pm)
merely reported him as having warned "those who harbour
rebellion motives that the Zimbabwe Defence Forces has men and women
who are willing and ready to defend the country’s sovereignty."
His threat that
the "army was ready to pull the trigger" to
quell protests against government only appeared in the niche market
electronic private media (15/8).
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