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Zanu PF must stop pestering the media
Movement for Democratic Change
November 17, 2010

The rise in the harassment and arbitrary arrests of journalists from the privately owned media shows a forlorn attempt to bully the independent media from exposing corruption in Zanu PF. In the past 10 years, Zanu PF has targeted journalists and private media houses for attack as an intimidation tactic. On Tuesday, Bulawayo police detained Dumisani Sibanda, a NewsDay reporter who leads the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ).

Sibanda was interrogated for two hours over a story that in another newspaper which dealt with the suspension of regular police promotion examinations in order to head-hunt retired officers for re-deployment during the next election. Last week, police officers in Harare visited the offices of the Zimbabwe Independent and interviewed the editor; Constantine Chimakure over a story published by the newspaper in August that quoted a letter written by the Commissioner - General Augustine Chihuri to the Ministers of Home Affairs in which he opposed the government's planned electoral reforms.

Harare police are understood to be looking for Farai Mutsaka, a former Zimbabwe Independent news editor. Trumped-up criminal defamation charges continue to be laid against the journalists for exposing corruption. Those behind the arrests are people who are still stuck in the archaic politics of rampant greed and seek to escape the inquisitive eyes of investigative journalism by bullying journalists.

The MDC believes in a free media, freedom of speech, respect for property and human rights and a free and fair election. The MDC salutes Zimbabwean journalists, who have remained true to their mission, for their courage telling the real Zimbabwean story against all odds. The MDC urges the media to prod every dark corner and unmask the corrupt, violent and politically dangerous vestiges of dictatorship still in our midst. The inclusive government must take a strong stand against the attacks on the Press, from any quarter, for political ends.

The MDC fully subscribes to the principle stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers".

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