Zimbabwean police are holding an arrested broadcasting executive hostage until five of his colleagues at a private radio station surrender. The executive director of Voice of the People (VOP), John Masuku, was due to appear in court yesterday after his arrest on Monday on charges that he operated his radio station without a government licence, his lawyer Rangu Nyamurundira said. But the police changed their tune and were still holding Masuku last night, demanding that his fellow directors at VOP surrender to them, the lawyer said. Nyamurundira condemned the police action as illegal. Zimbabwean police are allowed to detain people for a maximum of 48 hours before charging them in a court – the exception being economic crimes, which allow for police detention of up to a month. By last night, none of the five VOP directors had surrendered. Nyamurundira said the police had seized computers and documents after raiding the offices of the VOP in Harare last week. Masuku’s three other junior staffers were arrested but were released without charge after the attorney-general’s office ruled that they could not be charged because they were not owners of VOP.

Under Zimbabwe’s Broadcasting Services Act, it is illegal for Zimbabweans to own signal- transmitting equipment or to broadcast from the country without first seeking permission from the state-run Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe. VOP compiles reports from within Zimbabwe and broadcasts its signals via a Radio Netherlands transmitter off Madagascar. Since VOP does not broadcast from a transmitter rooted in Zimbabwe, it argues that it does not need a government licence to operate. Masuku’s arrest comes in the wake of a threat by Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya to crack down on media organisations and journalists accused of conniving with foreign powers against Zimbabwe. Just like the banned Daily News, whose printing press was bombed and destroyed in 2001, the offices of VOP were bombed in 2001, and the radio station lost its equipment. The perpetrators of both bombings are still at large and the police never opened a docket to investigate. Masuku’s arrest comes in the wake of a renewed onslaught on the media by the Zimbabwean government, which last week seized and then later released publisher Trevor Ncube’s passport.

From The Star (SA), 22 December
Source: WWW.ZwNews.Com