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Weekly Media Review 2011-22
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday May 30th - Sunday June 4th 2011
June 10, 2011

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ZRP threats fuel police neutrality debate

Remarks by senior policemen following the killing of Inspector Petros Mutedza in Glen View, Harare, and the subsequent crackdown on MDC-T supporters there, raised fresh questions in the media about the neutrality of Zimbabwe's security forces.

None of the government media's 23 reports independently investigated what exactly transpired or interpreted the police's threats of revenge as having the potential to incite violence against MDC-T supporters.

Neither did they view police calls for the imposition of capital punishment for those convicted of Mutedza's killing as likely to undermine Zimbabwe's judicial process, nor that their utterances had given credence to the perception that the ZRP was partisan.

ZBC (31/5, 8pm & 1/6, 6am) and The Herald (1/6) passively reported the police as having "declared war on people who attack their members" during a funeral parade for Mutedza. It reported police commissioner Charles Mfandaidza, speaking on behalf of Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, saying the police would "descend heavily on political elements bent on making the country ungovernable".

In most of ZTV's 13 reports related to Mutedza's killing during the week its presenters did not miss an opportunity to describe it as "murder" committed by "suspected MDC thugs", or "MDC-T hooligans" a refrain echoed repeatedly in the pages of The Herald (30/5 8pm, 31/5 6pm, 8pm, 1/6, 8pm and 2/6 7am and 8pm). Such unprofessional reporting - undoubtedly driven by a desire to discredit the MDC-T - undermines the judicial process and particularly the possibility of a fair trial.

Reports that the police had imposed tough, last-minute restrictions on an MDC-T rally in Highfield, resulting in a poor attendance, and their dismissal of the petrol bombing at the home of Finance Minister Tendai Biti as a "political gimmick" also appeared to reinforce the perception that the ZRP was partisan (The Standard, The Herald, Daily News and SW Radio Africa, 5, 6 & 7/6).

The Herald (7/5) quoted presidential spokesman George Charamba justifying the conditions imposed on the MDC-T rally as "standard" while the police described the attack on Biti's house as suspicious. They claimed that preliminary investigations had shown that the bombing could have had been stage-managed to "hoodwink" SADC ahead of its meeting on Zimbabwe this weekend.

The private media also failed to independently investigate the circumstances surrounding the policeman's death before arrests were made. But they argued that ZANU PF would use the killing as evidence that the MDC-T was a violent party at the SADC meeting and criticized the police for threatening revenge and for urging the courts to impose the death penalty on those responsible (SW Radio Africa, 31/5 and The Standard, 5/6). They reported that such comments were sub judice and claimed they exposed the police's bias, as the police have not called for similar punishment for those responsible for killing hundreds of MDC supporters during previous national elections (NewsDay and Daily News, 1 & 7/6).

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