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Zim shrugs off Catholics
Zimbabwe's government on Monday shrugged off an appeal by the country's Roman Catholic bishops for democratic reform while an opposition activist lay in critical condition in hospital after being shot, reportedly by police. Reacting to a pastoral letter from the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference pasted on church doors on Easter Sunday, Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said he "respected their opinion," South African public radio reported. Zimbabwe was a democracy, he insisted, adding that the bishops, who warned of a "mass uprising" in the absence of democratic reforms, were "free to say what they like." Worshippers crowded around church notice boards after mass on Easter Sunday to read the pastoral letter entitled God Hears the Cries of the Oppressed, which lamented state "arrests, detentions, banning orders, beatings and torture" and "vote-rigging." "Oppression is sin," the bishops warned President Robert Mugabe, himself a Catholic, adding: "In order to avoid bloodshed and a mass uprising, the nation needs a new people-driven constitution" under which to hold "free and fair elections." Posted by: Fred 2007-04-13 |
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