(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release: Reporters sans frontières activist and editor-in-chief of “The Journalist” arrested by London police On 21 February 2002, to mark President Robert Mugabe’s birthday, about a dozen Reporters sans frontières activists went to Zimbabwe’s Tourism Office in London, to urge the Zimbabwean head of state to restore […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release:
Reporters sans frontières activist and editor-in-chief of “The Journalist” arrested by London police
On 21 February 2002, to mark President Robert Mugabe’s birthday, about a dozen Reporters sans frontières activists went to Zimbabwe’s Tourism Office in London, to urge the Zimbabwean head of state to restore press freedom in his country. The protesters pasted posters bearing the president’s effigy on the Tourism Office’s windows. The posters read, “President Mugabe: Enemy of Press Freedom”. After protesting for one-half hour, a Reporters sans frontières member, Jean-François Julliard, who oversees research for the Africa Desk at the organisation’s Paris headquarters, and Tim Gopsill, editor-in-chief of the National Union of Journalists’ (the British journalists’ union) monthly publication, The Journalist, were arrested.
Robert Mugabe is included on Reporters sans frontières’ list of international press freedom predators. Zimbabwe has become one of the most repressive countries on the African continent in terms of press freedom. Since 1 January 2001, close to thirty journalists have been arrested and three foreign press correspondents have been expelled from the country. Many others have been threatened or assaulted. A British daily’s correspondent in Zimbabwe was forced to flee the country for fear of reprisals.
