The current government in Zimbabwe continues to thumb its nose at the rest of the world and act in increasingly more repressive ways every week. A recent example is the closing of the country's leading and most popular newspaper, the independent Daily News, on 12 September 2003. The ban follows a Supreme Court ruling on 11 September that the paper was operating illegally. Plainclothes security police, accompanied by about 20 paramilitary police armed with automatic rifles, burst into the newspaper's offices in central Harare at about 5pm, ordered staff to leave and arrested Nqobile Nyathi, the Editor, and Simon Ngena, the production manager. While I will not deny that the actions of the Mugabe government have a basis in intrinsic problems of modern Zimbabwe, the handling of these issues has often been brutal and repressive and goes beyond what any democratic society should endure. CIDA maintains some presence in Zimbabwe and I urge its decision makers to add their voices to others and persuade the Canadian Government to continue to put pressure on the government in Harare to allow basic democratic institutions such as a free press and a right to public assembly for all people.