(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on President Robert Mugabe to immediately release Washington Sansole, a director of “The Daily News” who was arrested on 26 October 2003, and Tulepi Nkomo, another director’s niece who was arrested on 25 October. Their arrests, which were preceded by the detention of 18 of the newspaper’s employees for several […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on President Robert Mugabe to immediately release Washington Sansole, a director of “The Daily News” who was arrested on 26 October 2003, and Tulepi Nkomo, another director’s niece who was arrested on 25 October.
Their arrests, which were preceded by the detention of 18 of the newspaper’s employees for several hours on 25 October, are the latest round in an unrelenting government drive to close “The Daily News” for good.
“We are outraged by these arrests, which show the Zimbabwean authorities will stop at nothing to prevent the country’s sole independent daily from publishing,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said. “They must halt this series of arbitrary arrests and this unacceptable harassment of the newspaper’s directors and employees,” he added.
Sansole was arrested in Bulawayo. Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted police as saying he would be held until the other directors presented themselves. However, four of the newspaper’s nine directors have already left the country.
Nkomo was arrested on the night of 25 October at the home of her uncle, Samuel Nkomo. The newspaper’s legal adviser, Gugulethu Moyo, said she had no professional relationship with “The Daily News”. There has been no word of her since her arrest.
Earlier on 25 October, police arrested 18 of the newspaper’s journalists and staff members a few hours after it published its first issue since being banned on 12 September. According to Reuters, they were released several hours later. However, they reportedly had to sign statements that they work for “The Daily News”, which might be a first step towards legal prosecution.
The newspaper said in its 25 October edition that the Zimbabwean authorities wanted submissive news media that see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing bad about the government. The front page featured a cartoon of the information minister crushed by a pile of copies of “The Daily News”.
Police are reportedly still occupying the premises of “The Daily News”. The newspaper’s legal adviser told Reuters the arrests were “acts of revenge” by a government that “preaches the rule of the law, but practices the law of the jungle.” The arrests come after the Harare Administrative Court ruled that the government’s media commission had shown bias when banning the newspaper and that the ban was illegal.
This ruling is available in English, Spanish and French on the RSF website (http://www.rsf.org).
