The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemned firmly today the death threats against Stanley Kwenda, a freelance journalist, a contributor to the private weekly The Zimbabwean, which forced him to flee the country.

The threats were made by a high-ranking police officer through the telephone.

“We are very outraged that a police officer can use his office to threaten journalists who only do their work to inform” said Gabriel Baglo, IFJ Africa Office Director. “The officer responsible for the threats has to be made to account for his threats. They must allow our colleague freely to do his job to inform”.

According to Wilf Mbanga, the newspaper’s editor, Kwenda had quoted relatives of Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge’s late wife making critical comments about the senior police officer. Fearing for his life Kwenda fled the country where he has gone underground.

Foster Dongozi, the vice president of the Federation of African Journalists, FAJ and executive committee member of the International Federation of Journalists, IFJ, condemned the threats made against Kwenda.

“We had  very high hopes that as we begin the new  year, the issues pertaining to safety of journalists in Zimbabwe and the normalization of the media environment would improve. The news that we are receiving about threats reportedly made against our comrade is certainly not encouraging. Certainly, the issue calls for urgent investigations to establish if such actions represent the official position of the Zimbabwean government”.

IFJ calls for a quick investigation to identify and punish the authors of these threats in order to permit our colleague to go back to the country and to work freely. Press freedom must be protected and promoted in this country.

For more information contact the IFJ at +221 33 867 95 87
The IFJ represents over 600,000 journalists in 125 countries worldwide