Beset by economic problems and controversy over its military involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo civil war, President Robert Mugabe’s government increasingly clamped down on independent media and their efforts to question his rule. The most egregious attack on press freedom in Zimbabwe last year was the illegal arrest and torture in January of…
New York, January 6, 2000—The trial of Sunday Standard journalists Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto has been deferred to July 2000. At a hearing in Harare yesterday, the magistrate remanded the two until July 7, pending the outcome of their constitutional challenge to the legislation under which they were charged. Military officers arrested and illegally…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about recent death threats against Sunday Standard reporter Ray Choto. The threats began in November, shortly after Choto returned to Zimbabwe after collecting an international press freedom award in Canada, along with his colleague Mark Chavunduka, editor of the Sunday Standard. On November 21 a package arrived at Choto’s home in Harare, containing a teddy bear, two live bullets, and a note threatening him and his family. Two other independent journalists, Basildon Peta of the Financial Gazette and Ibbo Mandaza of the Zimbabwe Mirror, received anonymous threats at around the same time.
Islamabad, October 6, 1999 – After a two-hour hearing, the Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan dismissed a petition that sought to exclude embattled editor Najam Sethi from political life by having him declared non-Muslim. The petition was filed on June 24 by legislator Syed Zafar Ali Shah, a member of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s ruling…
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply dismayed that journalists Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto of the Harare-based Sunday Standardnewspaper are to face trial in Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court on October 4, despite widespread international outrage over their case.
January 23, 1999 His Excellency President Robert Mugabe Office of the President Causeway, Harare Zimbabwe Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged over the acts of torture reportedly committed by military police and Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) agents against Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, editor and reporter respectively, for the weekly independent…
January 23, 1999 His Excellency President Robert Mugabe Office of the President Causeway, Harare Zimbabwe Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged over the acts of torture reportedly committed by military police and Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) agents against Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, editor and reporter respectively, for the weekly independent…