The Zimbabwe government's crackdown on free speech, which has long targetted journalists, in recent weeks has expanded to include a cafe, a poet, and meetings with diplomats, aid agencies and unions.
Only two days after President Robert Mugabe's controversial re-election, he enacted a tough new media law, which together with a security law passed in January, have become the two main tools in authorities' whittling at free speech rights.
Journalists remain a favorite target.
Police have detained Peta Thornycroft, a correspondent for Britain's Daily Telegraph, since Wednesday on accusations of "publishing false statements likely to be prejudicial to state security" and "incitement to public violence."
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo on Wednesday threatened to prosecute the nation's only independent daily, the Daily News, over an article reporting an international call for fresh elections.
Both those cases have drawn criticism from press rights watchdogs, including the Paris-based Reporters without Borders, the World Association of Newspapers, and the Vienna-based International Press Institute.
But police efforts to curb free speech have moved beyond journalists.
The Book Cafe, a restaurant and book store in Harare, was told by police that it could no longer host political debates unless the event was cleared with police first.
"We have been holding these political discussions every Thursday, and our speakers have included government officials," the cafe's director said in a statement from the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).
"We no longer know what is freedom of expression, but to be frank, The Book Cafe was holding political discussions and workshops in which top ZANU-PF officials like Professor Jonathan Moyo ... were included. Those in and seen as the opposition were also included in the discussions," the statement said.
The owners said they would comply with the order.
In the town of Plumtree, on the southern border with Botswana, 25-year-old poet Sikumbuzo Dube faces a year in prison over a poem he wrote that ridicules Mr Mugabe. Mr Dube had been deported from Botswana after he was found to have entered the country illegally. He was being held in Plumtree prison, where he recited his poem, "Cry, the Beloved Country," which borrows its title from the Alan Paton's novel set in 1940s South Africa. Prosecutors said Mr Dube's poem caused an uproar in the prison cells, dividing the detainees into those who enjoyed it and those who were offended, MISA said. Police also used the security law to break up a meeting of the powerful Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) on March 14, when leaders of the labor movement were to discuss the aftermath of the presidential election. During and after the March 9-11 polls, police used the law to break up meetings between diplomats, aid agencies and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has rejected the election results, saying the poll was "massively rigged." Zimbabwe's new legislation has come under fire locally and internationally, and has been cited by many independent and foreign observers as among the factors that compromised the presidential poll. AFP