|
Zimbabwe continues arrests of critics, says opposition party
[Al Ahram] Zim-bob-we's military and police are arresting scores of opposition members and activists after authorities thwarted an anti-government protest last week, according to rights groups.More than 60 people have been arrested so far in the continuing clampdown, said Zim-bob-we Lawyers for Human Rights, which is providing lawyers for the arrested people. Last week internationally known author Tsitsi Dangarembga was arrested for a peaceful protest and spent a night in police cells before being released on bail. Zim-bob-we's main opposition party, the MDC Alliance, says dozens of its officials have been arrested or have gone into hiding. If state agents do not find the person they want to arrest, they often vandalize their homes and harass their relatives, said opposition front man Tendai Biti. Human rights groups accuse President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration of clamping down on dissent under the guise of enforcing anti-COVID-19 lockdown rules. The Zim-bob-wean police and government officials have repeatedly denied allegations of human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... abuses, saying those arrested or being sought by the police were inciting people to revolt against Mnangagwa's government. On Monday, a judge postponed until Thursday a bail hearing for Hopewell Chin'ono, an investigative journalist who has been in jail for two weeks on accusations of mobilizing the foiled protests. Another investigative journalist, Mdudzuzi Mathuthu, prominent for reporting on alleged government corruption linked to purchases of COVID-19 personal procurement equipment and drugs, is in hiding. ``I am hiding like a rat in my own country for doing nothing more than my job,'' Mathuthu told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named Monday. ``Journalism is just a job, but in Zim-bob-we it can be a matter of life and death. They have not only come just after me, but my family as well,'' he said. Posted by: Fred 2020-08-04 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=578698 |