Reporters sans Frontières (Paris)
27 May 2008
RSF condemns the continuing use of violence against the independent press after 60,000 copies of "The Zimbabwean On Sunday" newspaper were intercepted and torched on the evening of 24 May 2008, and a freelance reporter was attacked and beaten in the eastern city of Mutare.
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Are these not the AK-47 rifles used that Mugabe recently obtained from China? Some reports state he received his guns from China and yet others say not.
China's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday rejected African media reports that over the weekend said the weapons had finally reached Zimbabwe.
Reports from South Africa and Mozambique said the cargo of guns, bullets, grenades, and mortars had been unloaded in either Angola or Democratic Republic of the Congo before making their way to Zimbabwe.
Qin, however, said those reports were completely false.
He says they have already many times said that the weapons sold to Zimbabwe will return on the ship, called the An Yue Jiang, and that it is currently on its way back to China. Therefore, he says, the reports and comments are groundless and purely fabricated.
Hard to know who to believe. China isn't exactly famous for upholding truth and freedom ...
Freedom of the press?