I have been wanting to post on this subject for a few days now but just never got around to it:
A respected colleague and friend, Toby Harnden, was today acquitted and set free on charges of supposedly violating immigration and work permit rules in Zimbabwe. He had been in jail along with his photographer for a few days after covering Zimbabwe's rigged elections (which saw another landslide win for dictator Robert Mugabe) for London's Sunday Telegraph.
The dispute apparently revolved around the fact that Toby misread the amount of time he was allowed to stay and work in the country, because the handwriting on his visa was illegible. Looks like not even the judge could read it clearly, so Toby was exonerated. (In Mugabe's Zimbabwe, no journalist can stay permanently; only temporary visas are issued to minimize the amount of critical coverage.)
Toby Harnden is one of the best and hardest-working journalists I know. I used to sit 20 feet away from him when I was working in Washington; he was then Washington bureau chief of the Daily Telegraph. Way to go Toby for coming out of this safely and a safe trip home.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:06 AM
