Saturday, January 28, 2006

Zim threatens Journalists

LINK


NYTimes has a rare (for them) story about press censorhips in Zim...

Zimbabwe's security minister was quoted Friday in a government-controlled newspaper as saying that "the net will soon close" on those remaining journalists whose criticism of the government threatens the nation's security.

The warning from the official, Didymus Mutasa, followed the arrest this month of employees and directors of Voice of the People, a news organization based in the capital, Harare, that had broadcast uncensored reports into Zimbabwe via a shortwave transmitter in Madagascar operated by the Dutch government.

The police in Mutare, in eastern Zimbabwe, also seized a well-known journalist on Jan. 18 and held him for three days on charges of violating the state's media laws.

LINK

Kubatana net has information on this radio station

And the Voice of the people has a web site HERE

True news is getting harder to find out...my friends in Zim are afraid to write too much, because the letters are censored...and now that China has helped Zim set up internet filters, the email is watched too...

This is similar to the "security" imposed by the white Smith government...where we were searched for letters and documents when LEAVING the country....(My sainted mother smiled and smuggled some inside her bra...I looked dangerous, but she looked like a naive church lady, so was not searched)...
Dictators seem to read the same book...under the Smith government, land was confiscated from farmers etc. (usually black farmers and sold to white farmers), political opponants were jailed, and missionaries were often accidentally "killed" if they got too close to the opposition...

The difference, of course, is that Smith didn't starve his people...and allowed NGO's to help them...

And back then, the anti Government forces had shortwave radio stations that people listened to stealthfully at night...










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