Three more independent journalists were arrested in Zimbabwe and charged on Thursday over reports in the latest issue of The Sunday Standard that criticised the police, the newspaper said.
Editor Bornwell Chakaodza and reporters Farai Mutsaka and Fungayi Kanyuchi were questioned at the main Harare police station before being charged under strict new media laws, said assistant editor Brian Latham.
The charges related to two articles carried on Sunday about the importation by police of sophisticated Israeli-built riot control vehicles and alleged police corruption, he said.
The three are accused of ”abuse of journalist privilege by publishing falsehoods”, an offence punishable by up to two years in jail. Chakaodza, the editor, faced two charges for allowing the reports to be published. Police had no immediate comment.
The newspaper said police had bought the anti-riot tankers, equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance cameras and laser facilities, water cannon and chemical additives, in anticipation of civil unrest in the crumbling economy.
Israel’s state-run radio Kol Yisrael on Wednesday confirmed the Beit Alfa Trailer Co. had sold the riot equipment to Zimbabwe.
Eight other journalists have been arrested under media laws enforced since March on charges of publishing false information.
Andrew Meldrum (50) an American citizen who is the Zimbabwe correspondent of the British newspaper The Guardian, and Lloyd Mudiwa, a reporter with Zimbabwe’s only independent daily newspaper are scheduled to appear in court May 22.
They were charged over a report in the Daily News about the killing last month — allegedly by ruling party supporters — of a woman near the town of Karoi, 200 kilometres northwest of Harare.
Police said the killing never happened, and the Daily News retracted the story.
Other journalists who have been charged since March, including a correspondent of the British Daily Telegraph newspaper, are expected to be summoned to court later.
New media and security laws were passed by the ruling party in the Harare parliament before the re-election of President Robert Mugabe in disputed presidential polls during March.
Human rights groups and opposition activists say the laws are intended to muzzle the media and suppress dissent in Zimbabwe.
Chakaodza, a former government representative and editor of the state Herald joined The Standard as chief editor on May 1. He was fired from the state media in 1999 for criticising the government.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo castigated Chakaodza on Monday for alleged incompetence when he edited The Herald and declared ”editorial matters at The Standard have fallen into the hands of fools”. – Sapa-AP