Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government is introducing laws to extend his already sweeping powers of detention of people suspected of state security and economic crimes, and also to stop journalists who violate state press gag laws from working, critics said yesterday.

The state-controlled daily Herald reported yesterday that the 150- seat Zimbabwe parliament had begun debating a bill that will allow police to hold people accused of a wide range of offences for three weeks without bail. Current law demands that suspects have to be taken before a court to apply for bail after they have been under arrest for 48 hours. The new law will apply to anyone accused under a wide range of offences, including insurrection, terrorism, possession of military weapons, money laundering, illegal dealing in foreign currency, stock theft and even for stealing a driver's licence.

"It's a completely serious erosion of freedoms. They are saying no court of law can grant bail for any of these offences," said Welshman Ncube, MP of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and chairman of the legislature's legal committee which vets bills for constitutional violations.

"The executive is going to be the final judge of whether or not a person is to be allowed bail. They are taking over the jurisdiction of the court permanently. This is the sort of thing we saw in apartheid South Africa and in (the former white minority-ruled) Rhodesia," he said. Mugabe's ruling Zanu(PF) party has a comfortable majority in parliament that will ensure the bill will be passed. The new legislation will add to the expansive armoury of "anti-terrorism" laws - under the Public Order and Security Act - that allow the government to clamp down on its critics by banning demonstrations and meetings of more than five people, and by prosecuting opposition supporters for criticising the government or making "obscene gestures" at Mugabe's motorcade.

Also yesterday the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, an alliance of local civic rights organisations, slammed proposed further restrictions on journalists under the country's notorious media laws. The state press last week reported the gazetting of a new bill under the "Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act" that would allow the government to jail for up to two years any journalist who practises his or her profession after being suspended by the state press control body, the Media and Information Commission. Without a licence issued by the commission, a journalist is not allowed to work, and it has the power to cancel or suspend the licences. – Sapa-DPA.