accredited foreign media organisations and local reporters working for foreign news organisations after accusing them of embarking on a propaganda assault on Zimbabwe. In an interview during the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) main television news broadcast on December 12, Charamba said the foreign media organisations accredited in Zimbabwe had quoted President Robert Mugabe out of context following his remarks that the country had “arrested” the cholera outbreak. He said Zimbabwe had no need to accredit the foreign news agencies as required under the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). The threat to deal with the foreign news organisations was given in greater detail the next day under the column entitled ‘The Other Side with Nathaniel Manheru’, published every Saturday by the state-controlled national daily, The Herald. The permanent secretary is widely believed to be the author of the column. Reuters, AFP, BBC, AP, France 24 International and Al Jazeera were singled out as undermining their bureaux in Zimbabwe and “reducing local reporters to mere runners, mere providers of raw copy which they then rewrite to suit their nations’ agendas. They have played little gods with copy on Zimbabwe, in the process rubbishing the letter and spirit of AIPPA (Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act). There has to be robust response,” wrote Manheru. The columnist also accused the USA’s State Department of creating a “full-blown structure” in Pretoria, South Africa, for purposes of compromising local journalists and stringers of foreign news organisations based in Harare. He said the elaborate operation was run by a female American intelligence officer from Pretoria who was in the newsrooms of Reuters and AFP in Zimbabwe “including inhabiting the heart of a well-known editor”. He accused Sydney Masamvu, a former political editor with the banned Daily News who is now based in South Africa; Sizani Weza of the US Public Affairs Section in Harare; freelance journalists Brian Hungwe and Frank Chikowore; and Luke Tamborinyoka, the director of information and publicity with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai, of being part of the operation. “The line between these journalistic misdeeds and espionage grows thinner and thinner by the day. I happen to know that the authorities are about to place a price on those concerned and let no one cry,” warned Manheru. • ALERT Date: December 15, 2008 Person/institutions: O’Brian Rwafa Violation/issue: Beaten/abducted O’Brian Rwafa, a news assignment editor with the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, was on December 13 allegedly abducted and severely assaulted by unknown assailants in Harare. Rwafa, who was admitted to a private hospital, reportedly sustained head injuries and bruises. He said three unidentified men who were driving a white vehicle approached him after he had parked his vehicle at his home in a Harare suburb. The assailants accused him of lying that things were “ok” in Zimbabwe and forced him into their vehicle along Bulawayo Road towards Norton, about 40 km west of Harare. He is quoted in the state-controlled national daily, The Herald, as saying that he wrestled with driver and the vehicle veered off the road and landed into a ditch. He managed to escape as the assailants concentrated on rescuing their vehicle from the ditch. Rwafa then phoned his relatives who picked him some distance from where the vehicle veered off the road. A report was made to the Police. So This Is Democracy? 2008 -152- Media Institute of Southern Africa