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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Answer

Mr. Ancram: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports his Department has received concerning (a) food shortages, (b) politically motivated murders, (c) suppression of the media and (d) political intimidation and oppression in Zimbabwe since the elections. [48787] Mr. Straw: We and the Department for International Development receive regular reports from a variety of governmental, non-governmental, media and other sources. (a) Food shortages--UNDP's Humanitarian Assistance and Recovery Programme is providing supplementary feeding to 558,000 people in Zimbabwe. In addition, the Department for International Development is providing supplementary feeding to 300,000 people. (b) Politically motivated murders--at least 10 opposition supporters, mostly election monitors, are reported to have been killed since the election and many more to have been injured. (c) Media suppression--the Access to Information Act requires Zimbabwean journalists to be licensed by the Zimbabwean Government, and effectively bans foreign journalists. A report for the Daily Telegraph (a Zimbabwean national) was detained, and subsequently released, over the Easter weekend. (c) Political intimidation and oppression--see (b) and (c) above.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

48787; 383 c725W;383 c723W

Session

2001-02

Subjects

Bullying Elections Homicide Politics and government Press freedom Violence Famine Zimbabwe

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk