The director of a Dutch-based independent radio station broadcasting in Zimbabwe was arrested on Monday just hours after the release of three of the station’s journalists, a lawyer said on Tuesday.
Police detained John Masuku, director of the Voice of the People (VOP) radio station, at the Harare central police station where he had been summoned, shortly after three VOP staffers were released, said lawyer Tafadzwa Mugabe.
”The police detained the three girls on condition that Masuku hands himself over to them,” Mugabe said, referring to Maria Nyanyiwa, Takunda Chigwanda and Nyasha Bosha, the three reporters who were arrested last week.
The women spent the weekend in police custody after a raid on their offices last Thursday.
”When the girls were released we accompanied Masuku to Harare central police station. The police went back to search the VOP offices and in the evening they charged Masuku under the Section 27 Broadcasting Services Act and detained him.”
The section under Zimbabwe’s strict media laws prohibits the possession, establishment or operation of signal-transmitting equipment without a licence.
VOP broadcasts into Zimbabwe on shortwave from its transmitter in Madagascar. Its offices were firebombed in August 2002.
The shortwave radio station is one of only two independent broadcasters which have managed to circumvent Zimbabwe’s repressive media laws by using transmitters outside the country to carry their programmes on shortwave.
Most of VOP’s programming is in Zimbabwe’s two local languages, Shona and Ndebele, placing it among the few independent media able to reach the large rural population who have no access to urban newspapers.
Zimbabwe has four radio stations and one television station all controlled by the government. – Sapa-AFP