Zimbabwe police on Friday arrested Bornwell Chakaodza, editor of the independent weekly Standard newspaper, and one of his reporters, for the second time in three days, his staff said.
”They came to his house at 7am. and took him to the police station,” said David Masunda, deputy editor of the Standard. Reporter Valentine Maponga was picked up from his home at about 5am, he said.
The two were arrested on Wednesday, but released after about eight hours, after being charged under the Public Order and Security Act with ”publishing false information likely to endanger public safety.”
Police could not be reached for comment. The charge refers to a report in the Standard on Sunday, which quoted relatives of a senior mining company executive, who was shot dead last week, as saying that ”top government officials” were behind the killings.
”This morning’s arrests were over the same business,” Masunda said. It was the seventh time in two years that Chakaodza (49) has been arrested.
Since 2000 when President Robert Mugabe’s government launched a wave of new repression against his critics, the country’s independent press has been under attack from the state with scores of newspaper editors, reporters, executives and even vendors arrested, although not one has ended in a successful prosecution.
Journalists have also been harassed, assaulted and tortured, and many are followed by state agents and have their telephones tapped.
There is almost a total ban on visiting foreign journalists and six locally-based foreign correspondents have been expelled since 2001.
The country’s top selling daily paper, the independent Daily News was bombed twice and then banned in September last year. – Sapa-DPA