16 Aug 2024 | Africa, News and features, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is in the throes of a deepening human rights crisis ahead of hosting a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) summit on Saturday when its leader Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has deployed army tanks in townships and launched a major crackdown against dissenting voices, will assume the bloc’s chairmanship.
The escalating harassment of pro-democracy campaigners, human rights defenders, political activists, student leaders and ordinary residents, some of whom have severely been tortured, came with dire warnings.
There is evidence that the state repression was planned at the highest levels within the country’s corridors of power as speeches by key figures sparked off a chain of frightening events.
On 27 June, while addressing his ruling party’s Central Committee, Mnangagwa said “rogue elements” bent on peddling falsehoods and instigating acts of civil disorder before, during and after important meetings would be dealt with “decisively.”
On 31 July, George Charamba, Mnangagwa’s spokesperson told the state run media there was a foreign hand in efforts to destabilise the country, and ominously warned that locals involved would be taught “a lesson.”
“It would appear they haven’t learnt their lessons,” Charamba said. “They should know that the Government is not just willing but is capable of delivering to them a lesson that is handsomely appropriate,”.
It’s the same message that the presidential spokesperson sent out while serving in the same capacity on behalf of former boss Robert Mugabe who was deposed by Mnangagwa in a coup in November 2017.
Following Mnangagwa’s takeover, there was cautious optimism in some circles that Zimbabwe would turn a corner after 37 years of dictatorship, but Zimbabweans found they were in for more of the same: official corruption, state sponsored violence, widespread poverty, unemployment, economic ruin and general decadence in the country’s cities and towns.
Mnangagwa’s recent threats were followed by horrific repression on the ground enforced by terror. Human rights organisations report 165 people have so far been caught up in the campaign to suppress freedom of expression and assembly.
Some of those punished in Mnangagwa’s latest crusade include 25-year-old Namatai Kwekweza, a human rights activist, and three others Robson Chere, the Secretary-General of Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ), Samuel Gwenzi, the director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Monitors Platform and Vusumuzi Moyo,an artist and sound engineer who were forcibly removed from a plane at Robert Mugabe International Airport by State agents on 31 July.
They were detained incommunicado for several hours and subjected to torture and later taken to court. The African Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders which monitored the case of Namatai, who last year won the inaugural Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize said “the torture inflicted upon her is beyond comprehension: being hit with open hands, clenched fists, wooden planks, and iron bars.”
Other human rights lawyers said Chere suffered extensive injuries that put him at risk of kidney failure and death. The Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights has since said prison officials blocked his medical practitioner of choice from attending to him on 10 August.
The latest crackdown by Mnangagwa’s regime has not gone unnoticed. On 14 August, the United Nations Human Rights Office said it was concerned by reports of arrests, harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders and political activists in the lead up to the summit.
There are now diplomatic efforts to push Mnangagwa to stop the persecution. The Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network has been writing to leaders of countries that will attend the SADC summit voicing concerns.
In one letter dispatched to South Africa’s International Relations and Cooperation Minister, the Southern Defenders chairperson, Professor Adriano Nuvunga detailed the repression. He said one person was charged with “public violence” for participating in an anti-government protest five years ago.
Nuvunga said the latest crackdown began on 16 June targeting 78 members of the Citizens for Coalition Change including the party’s interim leader Jameson Timba who were celebrating the International Day of the African Child at a private residence.
He added that that during the arrests, police used baton sticks and fired teargas at the group, resulting in injuries; including an extensive injury to one member which required surgery.
The activists are still locked up. In an interview with Index, Human Rights Lawyer Alec Muchadehama said charges like acting with disorderly conduct in a public place – for which activists like Namatai were tortured – are minor offences that would normally carry at worst a $200 fine.
He added that most of the alleged crimes fall into the category of what are known as miscellaneous offences, such as spitting on someone. For other offences such as accusations of illegal gatherings, police must just disperse gatherings, not cordon off the area and make dragnet arrests. He went on to say that as police know that the arrests are unlawful, hence come up with flimsy charges such as disorderly conduct, criminal nuisance and participating in an illegal gathering to sanitise them.
The human rights lawyer said the first bastion of defence when police act in such an illegal manner is for prosecutors not to take such matters to court.
“One of the greatest disappointments of our time is that prosecutors now take such matters to court as a matter of routine,” said Muchadehama.
Then there are courts who deny people freedom when the alleged minor offences come before them.
“Most of the judgments that have been handed down, I have respectfully disagreed with such judgments,” added Muchadehama.
In an X Space on Zimbabwe’s Human Rights Crisis and the SADC Summit organised by the Resistance Bureau on Wednesday, a former student leader Nancy Njenje who was constantly harassed by state agents and was once arrested and placed in crowded cells where she caught Covid-19 in 2021, said Zimbabwe’s courts have been captured by the ruling regime.
In one recent case, opposition leader Job Sikhala spent more than 500 days in pre-trial detention while facing trumped up charges of incitement to commit violence, disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice charges, with the courts denying him bail.
Njenge said the unfortunate thing about the crisis unfolding in Zimbabwe is that there is no coordinated effort to fight the status quo.
“Zimbabwe is under an institutional capture, we are not just fighting Zanu-PF to go, we are fighting all the institutions that Zanu-PF has captured. We are fighting the police, we are fighting the courts,” Njenge said.
She said people must not leave their struggles in the hands of the opposition but must use protests to express themselves.
In an interview with Index, Tawanda Muchehiwa, who is now living in the UK after fleeing Zimbabwe where he was abducted by state agents and tortured, said Mnangagwa has not changed his bad habits, despite his pretensions. He said Mnangagwa’s regime was desperately trying to prevent the emergence of fresh ideas and progressive thinking.
Unlike others who are languishing in jail after being tortured, Muchehiwa was lucky to get a scholarship to study at the University of Leicester where he graduated with a Bachelor of Law (LLB) last month.
“I was blessed to have good people around me who offered their kindness and support during this challenging time. Their assistance was invaluable in helping me reorganise my life after the brutal ordeal I had endured, allowing me to focus on my studies and healing,” he said.
As Mnangagwa looks for other people to lock up, he is at the same time preparing to roll out the red carpet for SADC leaders for the Saturday meeting.
Calls for the summit to be moved to another venue have been ignored.
One of the parties in South Africa’s governing alliance, the Democratic Alliance said South Africa, as a leading member of the region, must advocate for the summit to be moved to a location that upholds and respects democratic values.
“By abusing state machinery to violate the rights of Zimbabweans, the unrepentant ZANU-PF regime has demonstrated that it is prepared to go to any lengths to violate the law in order to entrench its authoritarian rule. South Africa, and by extension the SADC, have an obligation to hold the Zimbabwean government to account,” the DA said.
“Allowing the summit to proceed under the current circumstances will not only endorse ZANU-PF’s flagrant abuse of international law, but further undermine the principles upon which SADC was established. “South African opposition leader Musi Maimane went on to describe Mnangagwa as an “evil dictator.”
21 Aug 2023 | News and features, Zimbabwe
Despite his pledge not to curtail people’s rights when he came to power in November 2017, the past five years under President Emmerson Mnangagwa has seen the rights landscape shattered in Zimbabwe. Now we have another election coming up this week. What hope remains?
The world should have known better when Mnangagwa declared in his first inauguration speech that despite deposing Robert Mugabe through a coup, his predecessor remained his “mentor, comrade-in-arms and my leader”. His apprenticeship under a ruthless dictator has since proved to be a triumph for autocracy. Known as “the crocodile” because of the political cunning, Mnangagwa reigns over a country grappling with the same issues as before – high inflation, poverty and extreme repression.
After visiting Zimbabwe in September 2019, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, said he had noted “a serious deterioration of the political, economic and social environment since August 2018”.
Since tasting power, Mnangagwa has silenced dissenting voices and has used a captured judiciary to jail political opponents, the most prominent being opposition MP Job Sikhala and another outspoken critic Jacob Ngarivhume.
Sikhala, a lawyer, has been unjustly incarcerated for over a year for speaking out as a legal representative of the family of an opposition activist Moreblessing Ali, who was killed by a Zanu-PF member.
Citizens Coalition for Change President Nelson Chamisa
As Zimbabwe heads to the polls for general elections on 23 August, the political murders have continued. In this election, Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) President Nelson Chamisa (right) poses a serious threat to Mnangagwa’s reelection bid. During the last 2018 elections, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced Mnangagwa as the winner with 50.8% of the vote compared to Chamisa’s 44.3%. The opposition disputed the election outcome.
Five years on Chamisa is running for the presidency under the CCC banner, a party he formed last year after he was controversially removed from what used to be the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
Chamisa, a Pentecostal preacher, is popular and charismatic. He says though the political field is tilted against the CCC, something Mnangagwa denies, claiming the elections will be free and fair. Evidence suggests otherwise.
During the first week of August, an opposition supporter was killed by Zanu-PF members as they disrupted their rival’s rally in Harare. CCC activist Tinashe Chitsunge died when he was allegedly pursued and stoned by a mob of Zanu PF supporters in Harare’s Glen View suburb.
Victims of Mnangagwa’s regime go far beyond high-profile politicians and their lawyers. University of Zimbabwe student leader Gamuchirai Chaburumunda is one of many people who has been at the receiving end of the brutal regime. She was arrested with five other students while protesting against Sikhala’s continued jailing. Now out on bail and reporting to a police station twice a week, Gamuchirai believes that during her month-long detention, the state sought to break her spirit and instil fear in her and others.
Gamuchirai was first detained at Harare central police station and later at a maximum-security prison. She says she is haunted by flashbacks from her time in prison.
“I was detained with all sorts of people; murderers, rapists, drug addicts. Some detainees were pregnant, others even had babies. There were others in the psychiatric cells. The most heart-breaking thing is when strip searches were conducted,” she said in an interview with Index.
“We would be told to strip naked and be searched for any illegals almost every time we came back from court. It made me feel like detainees have no right to privacy.”
The intimidation is made worse by the passage of repressive legislation, notably the Patriotic Act, which criminalises criticising the government, and the Maintenance of Peace and Order Act, which restricts freedoms of assembly and association. An amendment to the Private Voluntary Organisation Act is set to further restrict the operations of non-governmental organisations.
The strongman behaviour has not relented and the electoral playing field is further tilted in Mnangagwa’s favour with the police, public media and the courts acting as an extension of the ruling party. The police have banned dozens of opposition rallies, for example, while the courts have been used to remove one of Mnangagwa’s presidential election challengers, Saviour Kasukuwere, from the ballot even though his candidacy had been accepted by the country’s electoral commission.
The government also issued new directives to restrict advertising by opposition political parties and candidates.
Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa-Zimbabwe) director, Tabani Moyo, said in the run-up to this month’s elections more journalists have come under attack compared to the last 2018 elections.
“Already we have seen journalists being on the receiving end of violations, the recent case being of Anastacia Ndlovu, Pamenus Tuso and Lungelo Ndlovu. These three were assaulted by members of the ruling party while covering [election] lead-up events. In 2018, the last election, we recorded six cases of violations; the bulk of violations then came after the announcement of the election results. This time around we have already recorded 13,” Moyo told Index.
Moyo noted that although the Constitution provides for editorial independence, observer mission reports from previous elections noted that the state-owned media was mostly reporting on the ruling elites. He said there is a general hidden hand instructing media content to be in favour of the ruling class.
He decried the latest move on billboards, saying by their nature billboards are part of a communications approach that political parties should all be able to access and utilise to get their message across.
“A billboard is a public square. It is supposed to be an area where we articulate our ideas. No one should tamper with opposing views,” he added.
Political analyst Ricky Mukonza said the muzzling of freedom of expression is something Zanu-PF is known for. He highlighted the attempt to pass the draconian Patriotic Act as a case in point.
“It’s simply a repressive piece of legislation that should not have space in a democratic country,” said Mukonza.
A week before the elections, reports emerged that ZEC had secretly conducted postal voting, in violation of the law, for police officers who were being forced to vote for Zanu-PF.
Chamisa tweeted afterwards that it was illegal and that these postal votes would not be accepted. But when the Zanu-PF are using all the dirty tricks at their disposal to retain power how will successfully contest this? It seems Zimbabwe is heading for another sham election.
31 Jan 2019 | Awards, Digital Freedom, Fellowship 2017, News and features
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Zimbabwe’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa at the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 2018 (Credit: World Economic Forum)
Zimbabwe’s president Emmerson Mnangagwa tweeted on 20 January that “in light of the economic situation” he would be cutting short his “highly productive” European junket to return home. This wasn’t the whole story. What forced him to come back early was a crisis precipitated by the steep fuel price hike he announced on 12 January just before he flew off.
Many people first heard of the increase via social media, and the initial calls to protest came online from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary general Peter Mutasa and #ThisFlag activist Evan Mawarire, who was shortlisted for the 2017 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards, who was released on bail on Wednesday 30 January. Mawarire is facing charges of treason related to a three-day strike that began on 14 January to protest the price hike.
Things immediately turned violent, with looting and arson causing millions of dollars worth of damage and clashes with police and military, responding with the brutality they are renowned for, leaving hundreds injured and an estimated 12 people dead. Those arrested face “assault, torture, inhumane and degrading treatment“.
Following the protests, Zimbabwe’s government forced a “total internet shutdown” from 15-17 January, with a brief restoration on 16 January. No one anticipated that the government would block the entire internet. Internet service providers only told their customers of the shutdown after Energy Mutodi, the deputy minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, spun it to Zimbabweans on national television that the internet was “slow” because it was “congested”.
On 21 January judge Owen Tagu in Zimbabwe’s high court, following an urgent appeal by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Media Institute of Southern Africa challenging the disruptions, ruled that the government exceeded its mandate in ordering the internet blackout during the protests.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Media Institute of Southern Africa argued that the state security minister who issued the directive for the shutdowns had no authority to do so. Tagu concurred.
Until the restoration of the internet, Zimbabweans still couldn’t access Whatsapp, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter without a virtual private network.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Media Institute of Southern Africa do not rule out another court hearing as Zimbabwe’s Interception of Communications Act “provides for the lawful interception and monitoring of certain communications in the course of their transmission through a telecommunication, postal or any other related service or system in Zimbabwe; to provide for the establishment of a monitoring centre; and to provide for any other matters connected with or incidental to the foregoing”.
Only the president has the power to issue a directive for the interception of anybody’s communications. However, as Denford Halimani, one of the lawyers for the applicants, told Index on Censorship, not even the president can shut down the internet: “The act does not give him that power. If parliament had intended to give him that power it would have said in addition to intercepting you can also shut down the internet for everyone.”
The internet has been integral to recent events in Zimbabwe, which may explain the government’s current nervousness. The military and those behind the November 2017 coup used social media to call on citizens to march in support of Mnangagwa. Thousands heeded the call and possibly helped persuade Mugabe, who had until then stubbornly refused to step down, to go.
Social media, specifically Whatsapp, was the medium of choice for disseminating information on the January 2018 strike and on what was going on in various parts of the country.
Mnangagwa may have missed the irony that when he made his announcement to return home on Twitter, but Zimbabwean Twitter users did not. Simbabrashe Chirara responded in Shona, the most widely spoken language in Zimbabwe: “The internet is blocked so who are you talking to, comrade?” With the widespread use of VPN’s, as recommended by the tech-savvy, many Zimbabweans are seemingly unfazed by the social media blackout.
Others wondered why he was talking about the “economic situation” without addressing the issue of those killed by the security forces. When gruesome footage of an attack on a protester by security officials featured in a Sky News report, Mnangagwa could no longer remain silent on the matter. In a statement on 28 January, the president expressed how “appalled” he was, adding that he has ordered the arrest of those behind it.
With the ongoing violence, questions are now being asked as to whether Mnangagwa’s has control over the country, with many believing that Zimbabwe is effectively a military state.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1549984748531-9fde297e-f33f-1″ taxonomies=”173″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
