Zimbabwe editor arrested

Just a week after President Robert Mugabe accused his information minister of recruiting journalists loyal to the government’s opposition, Edmund Kudzayi, editor of the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper was arrested at his lawyers’ offices after a police swoop on his home on Thursday.

Police said Kudzayi was arrested in connection with some articles he allegedly published, while they were also on the hunt for The Zimbabwe Independent’s Dumisani Muleya on undisclosed charges.

“The charges are to do with the publications that he did.”, Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba told the media in a statement.

Zimbabwe Newspapers (Zimpapers), the holding company for state owned publications, said the police also confiscated computers from his office and other tools of his trade.

‘’The agencies carried a number of electronic gadgets including iPads from his office and did not state the reason for such. Edmund Kudzayi was also summoned to the police in absentia and did not report for duty. Edmund Kudzayi was arrested later in the day. By late last night Zimpapers had not yet ascertained the exact details of the charges,’’ reads the statement.

The country regularly arrests editors from independent media under stifling security and media laws but editors from government-owned media have not been arrested in the last ten years.

Source: The Herald