The editor of a Zimbabwean provincial newspaper in the south of the country was arrested last week under the country’s tough media laws, a regional media watchdog said on Monday.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) said in a statement that Norna Edwards, editor of the Mirror, a weekly paper published in the southern town of Masvingo, was arrested on Friday and released on Sunday.
Edwards was arrested for a story that appeared in the paper on December 19, according to Misa.
She will be charged for abusing journalistic privileges over a story on the arrest of four opposition activists for allegedly organising a work stoppage.
”The paper chronicled the events surrounding the arrest of the four and their alleged ill-treatment by the police,” said Misa. The section of the law under which Edwards is being charged states that if a journalist publishes falsehoods or fabricates information, this will be deemed abuse of journalistic privilege. The reporter who wrote the story, Kennedy Murwira was reportedly still being hunted down by the police.
At least a dozen journalists have been arrested since the new media law came into effect in March last year.
Journalists in Zimbabwe will know this week if they are allowed to continue to practise their profession, when the government-appointed media commission is due to issue press permits. – Sapa-AFP