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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Strikes and Protests 2007- Save Zimbabwe Campaign
Two
journalists arrested, a third beaten as police crush opposition
rallies
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without
Borders
March 13, 2007
View Save Zimbabwe
Campaign index
of images and articles
Reporters Without
Borders today called for the release of two freelance journalists,
arrested while covering an opposition demonstration two days ago
in the capital Harare. It also protested against a brutal beating
police meted out to a former editor.
Nothing has
been heard of Tsvangirai Mukwazhi, a freelance photographer working
for the US-owned Associated Press (AP), since Zimbabwean police
arrested him on 11 March along with a freelance journalist, also
working for AP, Tendai Musiyu.
Lawyer Beatrice
Mtetwa said that Musiyu was being held at the Marlborough police
station, while lawyers working for the local branch of the press
freedom organisation, Media
Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe), said they were
continuing to search for Mukwazhi's place of detention.
The two journalists
were arrested during a prayer meeting held by the Save Zimbabwe
Campaign (SZC) in the working class district of Highfield, brutally
put down by police, along with numerous activists and opposition
figures, including Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leaders
of the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The SZC is a collective grouping churches; opposition parties, including
the MDC; non-governmental organisations; the trade unions and student
bodies opposed to Robert Mugabe's government.
The same day,
the former editor of the privately-owned but now defunct Daily News,
Luke Tamborinyoka, was badly beaten by police during the demonstration
organised at the Zimbabwe Grounds, leaving him with cuts and a bruised
back.
"Nothing
can justify keeping arrested journalists in custody," the
press freedom organisation said. "For several years the Zimbabwean
government has been using the police to silence those who criticise
it and those likely to report on their behaviour. This intolerance,
which is not new, must continue to be fought," it said.
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