Police raided the offices of an independent radio station on Thursday in Harare and arrested three reporters, a senior staff member said.
More than a dozen police offices conducted the raid at the central Harare offices of Voice of the People (VOP) and also seized documents and computers, said managing editor Shorai Kariwa.
”They had a search warrant on which it said they were going to search for broadcasting equipment,” said Kariwa, who was not at the offices at the time of the raid.
VOP, which operates in the Southern African country as a trust, broadcasts news and information into the country via Radio Netherlands. No independent radio stations are allowed to broadcast from inside Zimbabwe.
Lawyer Tafadzwa Mugabe confirmed the arrest of three VOP staff members but said their detention was ”unprocedural”.
In a telephone interivew late on Thursday, he charged that police were holding the three reporters as ”ransom” to coerce the VOP director ”to come to the police station”.
He said those arrested were being charged under Zimbabwe’s broadcasting laws.
In 2002, VOP’s offices were bombed by unknown attackers. There were no injuries, but all of the station’s equipment was destroyed.
Thursday’s raid came two days after Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya told a gathering in Harare that independent journalists in Zimbabwe were ”weapons of mass destruction”, according to a report in the independent Financial Gazette newspaper.
”In their service to the foreign interests, they apply strategies of blending half-truths and outright lies,” he was quoted as saying.
”These deliberate acts of disinformation create perceptions which are neither helpful to the customers and indeed the generality of our people.” – Sapa-DPA