The Media Institute of Southern Africa Zimbabwe is demanding for the arrest of some state actors and Zanu PF officials accused of violating media freedoms.
The media freedom lobby made the demands in its 2015 state of the media report it produced last week.
Among the state actors accused of violating media freedom in the 25 violations MISA-Zimbabwe recorded in 2015 is President Robert Mugabe, his wife Grace and their spokesperson George Charamba.
The violations were mainly in the form of threats and unlawful arrests, and emanated from Zanu PF factional fights.
“The country’s leadership should exercise restraint as threats to deal with the media have potential to trigger extra-legal violation of media freedom by political activists,” said part of the report.
“Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri and the responsible authorities should investigate and bring to account the culprits involved in the assaults of journalists more so where complaints and reports are filed against members of his force”.
MISA-Zimbabwe said although state media Journalists were also victims of media freedom violations the private media was the worst affected.
“This speaks volumes on the lack of willingness to embrace and practice constitutionalism on the part of senior government and Zanu PF officials and other non-state actors.
In one of the case President Mugabe and the Charamba threatened to clamp down on the private media for stories on leakages of the party’s meetings including Cabinet deliberations.
Other cases involved the “unlawful” arrests or assaults by the police of journalists conducting their lawful professional duties.