Harare - Zimbabwe police have arrested three people, two of
them South Africans, in connection with 'illegal broadcasting
equipment' for British television network Sky TV, state radio said
Tuesday.
It said the three were detained at the weekend in the western city
of Bulawayo after finding in a factory in the suburb of Belmont what
it described as 'Sky television broadcasting equipment' as well as
laptops, computers, disks, tapes and 'a South African-bound car.'
It claimed the three had 'tried to bribe police' with 25, 000
South African rand. The equipment had been in the factory since March
23, a week before elections in March 29. The broadcast gave no
further details, and police comment was not available.
President Robert Mugabe's government has cracked down on foreign
journalists visiting Zimbabwe without official accreditation.
Journalists for The Times of London, the New York Times and a
stringer for Britain's Sunday Telegraph have been arrested. A fourth,
a legally accredited photographer for London-based Reuters news
agency, is facing charges of having an 'unlicensed' satellite
telephone.
Also the weekend, a 14-tonne truck carrying 60,000 copies of the
Zimbabwean on Sunday, a London-based newspaper printed in South
Africa for Zimbabwean readers, was hijacked by men with automatic
rifles and burnt with its cargo, said its editor, Wilf Mbanga.
Zimbabwe, in the midst of economic collapse and a campaign of
violent intimidation against supporters of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change ahead of a second round of presidential
elections on June 27, maintains fierce control of the media through
legislation that carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail for
journalists working without state approval.
The New York-based International Committee to Protect Journalists
says the regime is one of the world's most hostile governments to the
media.
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