LATEST: Police Manhandle Herald Journalist George Maponga In Masvingo

Police officers deployed to man roadblocks during the current 21-day national lockdown continue to hog the limelight for all the wrong reasons after Herald Masvingo Burreau Chief George Maponga was this afternoon reportedly manhandled by officers in riot gear at a roadblock near Mucheke River.
The incident occurred at around 2pm on Good Friday.
Maponga, who is also Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) Masvingo Chapter president, was reportedly rescued by two police superintendents a Mubwere and a Boyce who were present at the scene. According to a report in The Masvingo Mirror, the journalist was forced out of the white Nissan Hardbody he was driving and told that he was not allowed to get into town.
As he was humiliatingly dragged out of his car, Maponga left the vehicle idling in the middle of the road.
The militant police officers who were barring virtually everyone from getting into the central business district also stopped a litigant with an urgent High Court application that was supposed to be heard today, from submitting his papers to Justice Wamambo.
Maponga becomes the third journalist from the province to suffer at the hands of police officers since the beginning of the mandatory 21-day national lockdown after ex-ZUJ President Matthew Takaona and a Chiredzi-based journalist.
Latest reports indicate that the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe) today filed an urgent High Court application to force the police to allow media practitioners to operate freely during the national lockdown which is currently underway.

Mirror