Police in Kadoma today arrested journalist Nunurai Jena for defying details who ordered him to stop taking pictures at a mounted roadblock.
He has been detained at Rimuka Police Station where the law enforcement agents are preferring charges of ‘disorderly conduct’.
This comes barely two months after police threw tear gas at 263Chat newsroom and injured a photojournalist after the police ordered him to stop taking pictures of them chasing vendors.
Journalists have also sought an audience with the police in the past over the continued ill-treatment of journalists and the law enforcement agents have agreed to uphold media freedoms.
However, the recent conduct by the police is a spat in the face of media freedom which is enshrined int he constitution and comes at a time when President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has been promising reforms in the media sector.
In recent week, there has also been a crackdown on civil society leaders who have been arrested on subversion charges which further puts a dent on Mnangagwa’s reforms rhetoric.
