By Own Correspondent| A group of “nosy” journalists were on Tuesday escorted out of Murehwa by state security agents shortly after their arrival in the area ZimEye can exclusively reveal.
The journalists, who had travelled feom Harare to Murehwa wanted to cover a story where local communities are at loggerheads with government over their looming displacement.
The journalists were followed by police officers in plain clothes who demanded that they leave Murewa “as soon as possible”.
As they were leaving and had travelled an estimated 5kilometers from Murehwa centre, the journalists were followed by the plain clothes police officers and instructed to return to Murehwa Police Station for proper “identification”.
The officer commanding Murehwa Police Station requested for their accreditation cards to verify whether they were not bogus before telling them that they were free to go since they were doing their work.
Said one of the journalists:
“We were summoned back to Murejwa police station where the officer commanding the police station exonerated us and said there was no need for us to be detained since we were just doing our work. But we never got the opportunity to do our interviews with the affected communities because we were escorted out of Murehwa soon after they (police) were satisfied that we were accredited.”
The journalists were at Murehwa centre covering the looming displacement of an estimated 10 families in order to pave way for road construction.
The communities are alleging that government has revealed that they are going to be moved to pave way for the construction of a new road linking Murehwa and Macheke.
According to the communities, it is believed that government construction is set to take a new route since the previously pegged route is no longer viable following the discovery of a huge rock.
Said one of the community members when contacted via telephone:
“They discovered a huge rock which they do not want to blast, so they want the road to take a new route. The new route means that we have to be moved, but where to, we have not been told. They just want to displace us.”