NEW BILL TO CURB MDC 'TERRORISM'.

Only three days after Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe vowed to crush the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, details of new laws to curb MDC "terrorist activities" were announced by the state press on Wednesday. The state-controlled daily Herald said Parliament would soon discuss the Public Order and Security Bill which would "deal with acts of insurgency, banditry, sabotage, terrorism, treason and subversion". The introduction of the proposed law "comes in the wake of terrorist activities by some MDC activists and officials and widespread calls by people for the government to take urgent action," the newspaper said. It compared the bill with plans by the United States and Britain to "revamp their security laws following the September (11) terrorist attacks in New York and Washington". The bill will ban bail for people arrested for a wide variety of offences, including treason and car theft, the Herald said. It will also make it illegal to publish statements that "engender hostility" to Mugabe, and ban "false statements" about him. Police are also to be given extensive powers to ban demonstrations, a move that overrides a Supreme Court ruling four years ago that made it a "fundamental human right" to hold such gatherings. Officials at the state printer said the bill had yet to be published. University of Zimbabwe law professor Geoffrey Feltoe said that ...