|
Cops arrest protesting journos
17/09/2003 19:05 - (SA)
Harare - Police arrested about 100 activists and three journalists on Wednesday during a demonstration against the state's shutting down of the country's only independent daily newspaper.
Douglas Mwonzora, a spokesperson for the National Constitutional Assembly, a reform group that organised the protest, said those arrested were taken to the main Harare police station for questioning.
Their march to the Parliament building in downtown Harare was to protest the closure by police of the Daily News and "the deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe," Mwonzora said.
Under the country's strict security laws, political demonstrations are banned unless given police clearance.
The militant constitutional assembly has routinely been refused permission to hold public meetings and marches.
Police, meanwhile, continued to seize computers and other equipment from the Daily News offices on Wednesday. The newspaper was shut down last week for failing to register under restrictive media laws.
Gugulethu Moyo, a lawyer for Associated Newspapers group, owners of the daily newspaper, said equipment was being loaded into police trucks for the second day.
She said police broke doors in the offices and carried off computers without packing them in boxes.
"There's a lot a damage. The police still have no warrant. It is another example of a blatant illegal action. We are helpless," Moyo said.
Police on Tuesday also arrested two freelance photographers for questioning after they had entered the newspaper offices during the seizures. They were released after being held for nearly seven hours at the main Harare Central police station.
President Robert Mugabe pushed through severe new media and security laws last year requiring journalists and independent media organisations to seek government licenses to operate.
The Supreme Court, which has been criticised for favouring the government, ruled last week that The Daily News broke the law by not registering for a license under the stringent Access to Information Act and was operating illegally.
The Daily News on Monday filed for accreditation with the state media commission. Previously the paper's executives had refused to apply for accreditation, saying the new media laws were an effort to stifle independent and foreign journalists and news organisations.
The owners are seeking an urgent ruling from the High Court to have its equipment returned and permit the paper to continue publishing while its application was being considered by the commission, chief executive Sam Sipepa Nkomo said.
Since its launch in 1999, the Daily News has given a voice to critics of Mugabe's 23-year rule, as the nation suffers its worst political and economic crisis since independence in 1980.
In January 2001, the Daily News printing presses were destroyed in a bomb attack hours after Information Minister Jonathan Moyo described the paper as "a threat to national security which had to be silenced."
The state controls the country's two other daily papers and the single television and radio broadcast station.
After the closure of the Daily News, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change called for a boycott of the state media by readers and advertisers.
- AP
|
