Zimbabwe
New York Times correspondent was detainedPosted Apr 11 2008
A New York Times correspondent was detained by Zimbabwe police in Harare April 3. Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter Barry Bearak was accused of practicing journalism without accreditation, national police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told Agence France-Presse.
The Times released a statement that said the police had detained Bearak, a Johannesburg-based reporter who was in Zimbabwe to cover the country’s presidential election. A U.S. consular official told the NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller that Bearak was being held for a “violation of the journalism laws.”
The Media Institute of South Africa reported a large group of police descended on York Lodge, a hotel where several foreign journalists had been staying. According to the International Press Institute (IPI), Bearak was one of six people taken into custody by Zimbabwean police during the raid.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Adrienne Arsenault said that she was also briefly detained by police on the same day.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed that two reporters were arrested at the hotel and said that they were practicing journalism without proper accreditation.
CPJ reported March 27 that the Zimbabwean government used its journalist accreditation law, known as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, to prevent most international media outlets from covering the country’s elections.
Zimbabwe has one of the world’s most restrictive journalist accreditation laws, according to CPJ.