Zimbabwe's main journalist organization says police have arrested four journalists while they were covering a story about a police officer.

The head of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Foster Dongozi, said the four were detained by police Friday while they were reporting on the eviction of a police officer north of the city of Bulawayo.

It is not clear why the police officer was being evicted.

Dongozi said his organization was not able to locate the four journalists by late Friday.

Media in Zimbabwe have operated under strict rules for the past decade, with several newspapers forced to shut down.

Critics have accused President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party of controlling the media for political purposes and blocking attempts to open independent media outlets.

The issue has been a point of contention with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, whose MDC party is in a fragile power-sharing government with ZANU-PF.