(MISA/IFEX) – Brian Mangwende, a reporter with the private daily newspaper “The Daily News”, was arrested in the eastern border city of Mutare on Friday 10 May 2002. Mangwende was detained for two hours on allegations of having written a false story over the victimisation of schoolteachers working in Zimbabwe’s rural areas. Mangwende wrote that […]
(MISA/IFEX) – Brian Mangwende, a reporter with the private daily newspaper “The Daily News”, was arrested in the eastern border city of Mutare on Friday 10 May 2002. Mangwende was detained for two hours on allegations of having written a false story over the victimisation of schoolteachers working in Zimbabwe’s rural areas.
Mangwende wrote that war veterans and ruling party (Zimbabwe African National Unity Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF) youths forced teachers throughout the country to pay “protection” fees. The story was based on a report compiled by the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), and also quoted the president of the union, Takavafira Zhou. PTUZ is a teachers’ trade union in Zimbabwe.
Police officers from the Law and Order Section and the Criminal Investigations Department picked up Mangwende at 8:15 a.m. (local time) and held him for two hours. No charges were preferred on him. The journalist was questioned by a police officer identified as Detective Inspector Dhliwayo on the authenticity of his story. Innocent Gonese of Gonese and Ndlovu Legal Practitioners represented the journalist. “The police did not charge him. They said that they would get in touch with him when they need him. They did not record a statement from him so his detention was puzzling,” said Gonese.
The story which led to Mangwende’s arrest quoted Zhou as saying that thousands of teachers have been paying, and continue to pay, “protection” fees to war veterans and ZANU-PF youths, while many have had their properties burned down or looted. PTUZ was quoted in the story as condemning what it termed “the brutalisation of teachers throughout the country”, even though the presidential elections are over.
Teachers in Zimbabwe’s non-urban areas are reported to be victims of politically motivated violence as they are accused of being supporters of or sympathetic to the opposition.
Mangwende, who is also the chairman of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) in Manicaland Province, said that his arrest is mere harassment by the police. “They are intimidating journalists to hinder them from conducting their business professionally. This type of harassment should be condemned,” said Mangwende.
