Police take hostages

taken into custody last week when police and officials of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) raided the VOP offices in Harare. They were being held at Harare Central police station. In an urgent application to the High Court last Friday seeking their release, their lawyer, Jacob Mafume, said the police had told him that they would not free his clients until VOP director David Masunda turns himself in. “The respondents (police) are holding the applicants as ransom as they have already stated in no uncertain terms that they will only release them after their director hands himself over to the police,” Mafume said in a court affidavit. He added: “The respondents have thus acted and continue to act outside the law and look set to continue to do so.” Mafume also said in his court papers that the police officers had indicated during the Thursday raid that they were acting on orders from Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi and that they would not let legal niceties obstruct them. “The . . . respondents arrogantly boasted that they were not going to be bogged down by the objections of lawyers, whether lawful or otherwise . . . They said they were doing what they were doing as “Minister akamirira” (the Minister is waiting for a report), giving a hint that they were operating under instruction from above,” Mafume said. Several police officers, Mohadi and Attorney General Sobuza Gula-Ndebele are cited as respondents in the application that was scheduled to go to court this week. Under the government’s draconian Broadcasting Act, it is illegal for radio and television firms to broadcast from the country without first obtaining a licence from the BAZ. The crackdown on VOP comes days after a vitriolic attack by government Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya against the privately-owned media which he accused of being paid by Western countries to tarnish the image of President Robert Mugabe and his government. Jokonya threatened to take unspecified but tough measures against the small but vibrant privately-owned media. – Own correspondent/ZimOnline