Harare, London | Sunday
IN Zimbabwe this weekend: police detained a manager of a mobile phone company after he refused to hand over data on opposition party subscribers and a government spokesman fingered British and South African reporters for ‘aiding terrorism’.
The private Daily News said Jimmy Shindi, customer service manager with the Econet Wireless company, was picked up on Friday for allegedly failing to release information on calls made by Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) officials.
Shindi was released without charge.
Meanwhile British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Saturday threatened diplomatic action against Zimbabwe after Harare accused journalists, including four working for British newspapers, of aiding terrorists.
The British High Commission in Zimbabwe has lodged an official protest over the threat to journalists who reported the beatings of whites, Straw said.
And he said he would be consulting European Union and Commonwealth colleagues about further action against President Robert Mugabe’s government.
“I am profoundly concerned by the reports of comments made by the Zimbabwe government spokesman in which he implied that foreign and local journalists were assisting terrorism,” he said in a statement.
A government representative said on Friday that Zimbabwe correspondents for Britain’s Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, and The Independent newspapers distorted truth and assisted terrorists through their reports.
He added in the state-run Herald newspaper that South Africa’s Star, The Zimbabwe Independentand The Associated Press (AP) were also guilty.
“It is now an open secret that these reporters are not only distorting the facts but are assisting terrorists who stand accused in our courts of law of abduction, torture and murder,” said the unnamed representative.
Straw said this is in clear breach of the Abuja agreement which specifically referred to Zimbabwe’s commitment to the freedom of expression and goes against the principles set out in the Harare Commonwealth Declaration.
Mugabe’s government has been widely criticised for its attacks on the independent press.
In recent months, Zimbabwe authorities have arrested local journalists, expelled foreign correspondents and tacitly accused the press of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The government also recently accused opposition members of being terrorists, and blamed the MDC for the murder of a war veteran leader, Cain Nkala, who was abducted from his home in Bulawayo city, in the south of Zimbabwe, two weeks ago.
The government representative comments on Friday were in response to a letter reportedly sent by the United States embassy to Harare, protesting against the recent beating of civilians in Bulawayo, allegedly by ruling party supporters.
The beatings were reported by independent and foreign media as retaliatory attacks against whites and the MDC, both blamed for Nkala’s murder.
The US embassy letter would be likely to spark a diplomatic row, the paper said.
Meanwhile, British newspapers on Saturday slammed as “outrageous” and “absurd” the accusations that foreign and local journalists were aiding terrorist activities.
Simon Kelner, the editor-in-chief of the Independent daily, urged Straw to monitor the threat “and protect those who are endangering their lives to provide fair and balanced reports in the British media on the worsening political climate in Zimbabwe.” – AFP
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