Zimbabwe police officers seize editor in crackdown
Zimbabwe police run during a training session. Police have reportedly arrested a Zimbabwean editor of a state-owned newspaper amid fears of a renewed crackdown on journalists. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- Edmund Kudzayi, the editor of the Sunday Mail, was said to have handed himself to the police after armed security agents raided his home in the early hours of the morning.
- In the past, the authorities have targeted journalists in the private media.
- Meanwhile, media organisations in Zimbabwe criticised the operation.
HARARE, Thursday
Zimbabwean police reportedly arrested an editor of a state-owned newspaper amid fears of a renewed crackdown on journalists.
Edmund Kudzayi, the editor of the Sunday Mail, was said to have handed himself to the police after armed security agents raided his home in the early hours of the morning.
Police officers also visited offices of the privately-owned Zimbabwe Independent newspaper in search of the editor Dumisani Muleya.
Muleya told an online publication that he was not at work when the detectives arrived and the company refused to release his personal information.
“I understand from colleagues at work that the police officers said ‘its business’ when they were asked why they wanted to see me.”
“I have no business with the police, and until they state specifically why they want me, I will not be turning myself in,” he told New Zimbabwe.
In a related incident, the house of the editor of another government-owned daily in the second city of Bulawayo, Mduduzi Mathathu, was raided in the morning today.
The motive for the crackdown is unclear but a fortnight ago President Robert Mugabe attacked Information minister Jonathan Moyo for employing journalists who previously worked for publications critical of the ruling Zanu PF party.
He labelled Prof Moyo a devil incarnate and a weevil who was destroying the party from within using the government-owned media.
The minister was criticised for employing Mathuthu and Kudzayi, who previously worked for Zimbabwe-focused online websites based in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, media organisations in Zimbabwe criticised the operation.
“The Zimbabwe National Editors Forum (Zinef) is gravely concerned about the arbitrary search by the police for three editors, namely, Dumisani Muleya, the editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, Edmund Kudzayi, the editor of the Sunday Mail and Mduduzi Mathuthu, the editor of the Chronicle without explaining the circumstances under which the search was being conducted,” Zinef chairperson Brian Mangwende said.
“Zinef is concerned about the welfare of the editors, and we call upon the law enforcement agency to protect them and not to hunt them.”
In the past, the authorities have targeted journalists in the private media.
