/ 27 January 2003

Zimbabwe police probe ‘church reporters’

Five foreigners suspected of being undercover journalists reporting on Zimbabwe’s hunger crisis have been picked up for questioning by police, representative Wayne Bvudzijena said on Sunday.

He said the five were picked up in Zvishavane, a mining town in the drought-hit south of the country, along with a journalist from a local daily newspaper. Under Zimbabwe’s strict press laws it is illegal for journalists to work without accreditation from a government commission. The government accuses a hostile international media of trying to undermine it.

Bvudzijena said the five, whose passports indicated they were journalists, had been allowed to return to their hotel while investigations continued. ”We’re convinced that they’re not aid workers,” Bvudzijena said.

One of those arrested, Kathleen Kastilahn, told AFP via telephone from Zvishavane that she was merely reporting for a church magazine.

Their group was picked up on Friday evening and questioned by police, Kastilahn said. ”They think we’re here to do clandestine journalism,” she said. ”We’re here to tell the story for our churches.”

Kastilahn said she and her five colleagues had been invited by the Lutheran World Federation Development Services to tour projects in the area and hold meetings with churches.

Among those arrested is Zimbabwean journalist Fanuel Jongwe of the privately owned Daily News newspaper. The others include two Germans — one a freelance photographer — a representative of Finnish Church Aid and a Kenyan coordinator for the Lutheran Development Services.

Jongwe said they had been told they were being arrested under the Public Order and Security Act and were due to have statements recorded by police on Monday.

”We have been told not to leave the hotel,” he added. In an earlier report the state-controlled Sunday Mail claimed that five suspected journalists and a Zimbabwean reporter from a local daily had been arrested and were in police custody. The five were posing as aid workers but had been ”sent into the country to secretly write stories aimed at tarnishing the image of the government,” the paper claimed.

The Zimbabwe government and aid agencies are currently distributing emergency food aid to some of the estimated eight-million of Zimbabwe’s 11,6-million people threatened by famine.

Since a tough new press law came into effect last year, at least 12 journalists have been arrested and two foreign correspondents told to leave the country.

Foreign journalists are allowed into Zimbabwe for short periods of time, but must apply for accreditation before they arrive. – Sapa-AFP