CRICKET BAN APPEAL TO THE (ICC)!!!

Call for ban on Zimbabwe cricket.

Cricket's governing body has been urged to act against Mugabe. Zimbabwe should be barred from competing in international cricket events say senior British ministers. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell have written to the sport's governing body calling for a boycott. The two cabinet members drew attention to the worsening human rights abuses in Zimbabwe in a letter to the International Cricketing Council (ICC). They want the ICC to send out a strong message to President Robert Mugabe. Their letter asks "if the ICC could reflect on the current situation and take a view on whether or not they see international cricket fixtures against and/or in Zimbabwe to be appropriate while such widespread human rights abuses are taking place".

President Mugabe's regime has attracted widespread condemnation for its 'Drive Out Rubbish' slum clearance programme which has seen 700,000 people lose their homes. Government crackdown The Zimbabwean government claims it is cracking down on black market trading and other criminal activities in the slum areas.

But opponents suggest it is a punishment campaign against urban residents who rejected Mugabe in recent elections. The British government was criticised last year for failing to prevent the England cricket team's tour of Zimbabwe. But the government maintained it had not supported the trip but was unable to act against it because they could have been sued. Both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have questioned the timing of the government's intervention.

The government wants to send a powerful signal to Mugabe. Shadow Foreign Secretary Liam Fox described the handling of the problems in Zimbabwe as "nothing short of pathetic". He said: "Tony Blair's government has done virtually nothing to protest to China, Zimbabwe's largest investor, or South Africa, its strongest ally, about their support for Mugabe."

The Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell was broadly supportive of the letter to the ICC but wondered why they were concerned only with cricket. "Zimbabwe has a large number of other international affiliations in a variety of sports," he said.