Zim journo flees police death threat

News of Kwendas flight to South Africa came as police in Harare on Monday briefly detained photo-journalist Andrison Manyere for allegedly taking a picture of an anti-government demonstration, to highlight the hazards confronting journalists in Zimbabwe despite formation of a coalition government by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. In a statement MISA-Zimbabwe called on the unity government and police chief Augustine Chihuri to guarantee Kwendas safety before he can return from South Africa where he fled last Friday following the death threat.

Kwenda fled the country over the weekend after he was phoned on his cellphone on 15 January 2010 by the alleged senior police officer over a story reportedly published in The Zimbabwean newspaper. The police officer allegedly told him that he would not survive the weekend, MISA-Zimbabwe said. The media watchdog, which described the incident as yet another serious threat to media freedom also urged the authorities to investigate the threat against Kwenda. MISA-Zimbabwe urges the inclusive government and the Police Commissioner General to unequivocally guarantee the safety of journalists and to assure Kwenda of his security pending full investigations into the alleged threats, it said.

Impeccable sources have supplied ZimOnline with the name of the police officer alleged to have threatened Kwenda but we cannot publish his name for legal reasons. The officer is a senior member of the polices law and order section and has been associated over the years with the arrest and torture of opposition politicians, journalists and human rights activists.

He was also named as one of the leaders of a team of state security agents that was behind the 2008 abduction and torture of scores of opposition and human rights activists among them prominent rights campaigner Jestina Mukoko.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai undertook in the power-sharing agreement that gave birth to their coalition government to restore democracy in Zimbabwe and to ensure respect for human rights including press freedom. The former foes also undertook to reform the police and other security arms of government to ensure they respect and uphold the rights of citizens.

But the troubled unity government is yet to move on security sector reforms while the army and police continue to exhibit repressive tendencies as shown by the arrest of Manyere who was picked up together with two other people, one of them a hotel worker accused by the police of filming the anti-government protest with his cellphone.

While Manyere was released without charge on Monday evening it was not immediately clear whether the hotel worker and a woman, who was on her way to a government hospital when she was arrested for taking party in the protest, were also released. Manyere was the only journalist among the more than 30 human rights and opposition activists abducted and tortured by state security agents in 2008 and later accused of plotting terror. The demonstration that Manyere was covering was called by the Woman of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) to protest the exorbitant school fees and the deteriorating standards in the education sector.