Author: TSA Press

Riot police in Zimbabwe on Friday fired teargas and beat demonstrators who defied a protest ban, as the opposition accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government of surpassing Robert Mugabe’s regime in brutality.

Scores of people gathered in a square in the capital Harare to demonstrate against the country’s worsening economy, despite massive police deployment and a ban upheld by a court the same morning.

Police cornered a group of protesters and beat them with batons, an AFP reporter saw.

One woman was seen being carried into a Red Cross ambulance.

The protesters then regrouped, singing songs condemning police brutality. As the crowd swelled, police fired teargas.

“People were just singing… peacefully. Then they saw the police coming — they were encircling people, they were actually surrounding the supporters then they came closer to us and started beating people,” a 35-year-old protester who gave her name as Achise told AFP.

She said police beat “an old woman”.

“This is worse than during colonial times,” said a man who declined to be identified.

“We aren’t armed but the police just beat us while we were sitting on the street”.

Police said in a statement they had arrested 91 people for various offences, but rights groups said there had been 128 arrests.

Dozens of police and water cannons were deployed in running battles with protesters, many of them from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The protest took place in Africa Unity Square, overlooking the Zimbabwean parliament, where crowds gathered in November 2017 to demand Mugabe, the country’s long-time autocratic ruler, step down.

MDC leader Nelson Chamisa slammed the “brutal” clampdown as even worse than during Mugabe’s era.

“We not only have an illegitimate regime in this country, we have a rogue regime,” Chamisa said. Seven people suffered serious injuries, including a woman, he said.

“What is clear is that it’s turning out that the regime in Harare is far worse than the Mugabe regime. One would be persuaded to think that Mugabe is back, but then you realise this — it’s not Mugabe even at his best.

“Mugabe had become a toddler when it comes to the kind of brutality that we are seeing… in terms of just the magnitude of abuse and heavy handedness.”

Friday’s protests went ahead after MDC plans for large-scale marches were banned by police late on Thursday.

An MDC attempt to challenge the ban in court was then rejected.

The party’s vice president, Tendai Biti, told reporters outside the High Court: “The fascist regime has denied the right for Zimbabweans to demonstrate”.

“There is no difference between Mnangagwa and Mugabe. We jumped from the frying pan into the fire after the November coup,” he said.

Supported by the military, Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe before winning disputed elections in July 2018.

He vowed to revive Zimbabwe’s sickly economy. But many Zimbabweans say the situation has worsened, with shortages of basic goods and skyrocketing prices.

Around five million people — almost a third of the country’s 16 million population — are in need of aid and at least half of them are on the cusp of “starvation”, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned this month.

The government, through the information ministry’s Twitter account, described Friday’s violence as “a few skirmishes.”

“Normalcy has returned to Harare,” it added.

Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a coalition of 21 human rights groups, on Thursday said six opposition and rights activists had been abducted and tortured by unidentified assailants ahead of the demonstration. Chamisa said the number had grown to 18.

Chamisa vowed to push on with more protests.

“What you are seeing is just but a teaser, this is an introduction, we are going to be on the streets until the state responds,” he said.

“This is a long winter of discontent, a long winter of expression of ourselves. It’s not going to be a walk in the park, it’s not going to be instant coffee.”

Friday’s protests are the first since rallies in January against Mnangagwa’s decision to hike fuel prices that ended in deadly clashes with troops.

At least 17 people were killed and scores wounded after the army used force, including live ammunition, to crush the demonstrations.

Amnesty International condemned Friday’s attacks saying they “demonstrate just how far the authorities will go to repress dissent”.

The British embassy in Harare said it was “concerned at the images of the heavy-handed response to disperse crowds in Harare”.

JOHANNESBURG – Movement for Democratic Change president, Nelson Chamisa, has stressed their anti-government struggle is legitimate.

He says the party’s end goal is to overcome the political crisis in Zimbabwe and challenge Zimbabwean President, Emmerson Mnangagwa and his government.

Chamisa is callling police brutality in the country an international embarrassment.

The MDC called off a planned shutdown of Harare on Friday after it failed to overturn a police ban on protest action.

Friday’s demonstrations would have been the first in a series of MDC-planned rallies.

Police fired teargas and violently removed the large group gathered in the capital.

The MDC has reported the arrest of over 60 people following the illegal protests.

SADC Executive Secretary
SADC House
Plot No. 54385
Central Business District
Private Bag 0095
Gaborone, Botswana

Sent via email and facsimile

Dear Dr. Tax,

I write to you from the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent non-profit organization that advocates for press freedom worldwide, ahead of the 39th Ordinary Summit to urge you to prioritize press freedom and the safety of journalists within the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The SADC treaty commits member states to the principles of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. In addition, the SADC Protocol on Culture, Information and Sport provides that member states should “take necessary measures to ensure the development of media that are editorially independent.” Despite these commitments, CPJ has documented a deeply troubling erosion of press freedom in several member states, including attacks on individual journalists, media suspensions, internet shutdowns, and restrictive legislation.

Many of these threats intensify ahead of and during elections. More than half of the SADC member states are expected to hold local and national elections by the end of 2020. SADC’s principles and guidelines for democratic elections require governments to “foster transparency, freedom of the media” and “access to information by all citizens.” Therefore, member states must ensure a free press so that journalists can work freely and safely, and citizens can access reliable information and make informed decisions.

Here is a summary of our priority issues within the region:

Attacks on journalists

We are particularly concerned with Tanzania, whose president, John Magufuli, is the incoming chair of the SADC, and where journalists operate in a very hostile environment. Freelance journalist Azory Gwanda has been missing since 2017, and the government’s failure to provide accountability in his case has had a chilling effect on the local media. Just last month, Erick Kabendera was arrested and charged with economic crimes in retaliation for his critical journalism. He remains behind bars.

However, attacks on journalists in the region extend beyond Tanzania:

• In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), journalists have endured assaults and arrests, especially while covering protests and elections or reporting on powerful individuals.
• In Zambia, journalist Derrick Sinjela is serving 18 months in prison for contempt of court in connection with his reporting on the country’s Supreme Court.
• In Mozambique, journalist Amade Abubacar remains in legal limbo after his arrest in January; he spent 108 days in pre-trial detention in connection with his reporting on the insurgency in Cabo Delgado before he was provisionally released, and has yet to hear whether he will be formally indicted despite his pre-trial investigation concluding in July.
• In Lesotho, a military spokesperson in late 2018 threatened an investigative journalist for articles she wrote on demands for compensation by soldiers.
• During the South African elections in May, journalists faced online harassment and cyber-bullying.
• In the run-up to the Comorian elections in March, and in the crisis that followed, journalists were arrested and newspapers were censored.

Media suspensions and shutdowns

In Tanzania and Zambia, authorities have used media suspensions to pull critical media outlets from the newsstands and the airwaves. During elections in late December 2018, authorities in the DRC blocked the signals of at least two broadcasters. Partial and complete internet shutdowns in the DRC and in Zimbabwe have strangled the flow of information during politically tense periods.

Restrictive legislation

Criminal defamation, sedition, and secrecy laws—many of them vestiges of the colonial and apartheid eras—have been used to target critical journalists and media outlets in Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, and the DRC. Zimbabwe and Lesotho  have recently struck down criminal defamation laws and we urge member states to follow this example. Through new regulations, Tanzania has also set impossibly high barriers for bloggers to operate while seeking greater control of what citizens can say online.

These are difficult but not intractable challenges. In fact, SADC member states have been catalysts for the development of press freedom in Africa, and around the world. Consider that May 3, the date of the 1991 Declaration of Windhoek—in which African journalists affirmed that the “free press is essential to the development and maintenance of democracy in a nation, and for economic development”—later became the day on which the global media community commemorates World Press Freedom Day.

Press freedom is essential to ensuring sustainable development, peace, and the enjoyment of human rights, and the SADC can and should be at the forefront of protecting and promoting press freedom in Africa and the world. But in order to do so, it must hold its member states to account on press freedom violations. The 39thOrdinary Summit of Heads of State and Government is a prime opportunity for SADC members to raise the issues CPJ has documented with relevant states. We urge SADC member states at the Summit to recommit to press freedom, and call for the release of all imprisoned journalists and the protection of free and independent media in the region.

CPJ would welcome an opportunity to discuss this further with the SADC secretariat, as well as representatives of member states.

Sincerely,

Robert Mahoney
Deputy Executive Director
Committee to Protect Journalists

CC:

Angola, President João Lourenço
Botswana, President Mokgweetsi Masisi
Comoros, President Azali Assoumani
Democratic Republic of the Congo, President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi
Eswatini, Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini
Lesotho, Prime Minister Tom Thabane
Madagascar, President Andry Rajoelina
Malawi, President Peter Mutharika
Mauritius, Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth
Mozambique, President Filipe Nyusi
Namibia, President Hage Geingob
Seychelles, President Danny Faure
South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa
Tanzania, President John Magufuli
Zambia, President Edgar Lungu
Zimbabwe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa

Post published in: Featured

Police combed Harare’s streets rounding up suspected Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters, after using batons and water cannon to break up a protest that authorities had declared illegal.

Nelson Chamisa, the MDC leader who disputes president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s election win last year and accuses him of being as repressive as predecessor Robert Mugabe, said his party had followed the law but authorities responded in bad faith.

“Today, we didn’t want to risk people’s lives by continuing to be confrontational because if we had chosen to be confrontational there will be blood in the streets,” Mr Chamisa told reporters in Harare.

“We will continue to mobilise but what you are going to see is a mutation of our strategy because when you are facing a confrontational regime you must also use tactics that are going to be above them,” he said, without elaborating.

Friday’s street demonstration was to have been the first in a nationwide series of MDC-organised protests.

The party accuses Mr Mnangagwa’s government of state-sponsored violence, corruption and economic mismanagement.

It was banned on Thursday by police, but more than 100 MDC supporters defied that before being chased by baton-wielding officers from a city square.

Police patrolled the usually bustling city centre in lorries and on foot, witnesses said, firing tear gas to disperse any groups that attempted to gather as most shops and business shut.

Police also directed tear gas at journalists.

Mr Chamisa said more than 80 people had been arrested.

A police spokesman said he would give an update later.

Court appeal

The MDC called the protest off early on Friday after armed police barred access to the party’s Harare offices and its court appeal against the ban failed.

“We have jumped from the frying pan into the fire after the [anti-Mugabe] coup of November 2017 . . . We don’t accept the conduct of this regime, the conduct of Mr Mnangagwa.”

Members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police block the road to contain the planned Movement For Democratic Change Alliance Peace March in Harare. Photograph: Aaron Ufumeli/EPA

In Geneva, a spokesman for the UN human rights commissioner urged the government to engage with citizens on legitimate economic grievances and “stop cracking down on peaceful protesters”.

The demonstrations are viewed as a test of Mr Mnangagwa’s ability to tolerate dissent in a country tainted by a long history of repression. So far this year he has failed to make good on promises of political and economic reform.

Elected after the armed forces intervened to oust Mr Mugabe, Mr Mnangagwa has said he aims to break with the brutal legacy that characterised much of his predecessor’s 37 years in power.

But the economy is mired in its worst crisis in a decade, and Mr Mnangagwa is struggling to convince the growing ranks of poor that austerity measures and reforms can trigger a recovery.

Zimbabweans had also expected last year’s vote to usher in a new dawn of expanded rights and an end to the country’s international pariah status, but the elections instead left society more polarised.

In January, a crackdown in Harare against fuel demonstrations left more than a dozen people dead.

Before Friday’s planned demonstration, six political activists were abducted from their homes at night and beaten by armed men, rights groups said.

In another echo of the Mugabe era, the apparatus of state was out in full force on Friday. Witnesses saw police and armed soldiers searching buses, taxis and private vehicles at checkpoints and randomly asking for identity documents.

One woman was taken to hospital with a deep gash on her head after police charged at MDC supporters.

Anger is mounting over triple-digit inflation, rolling power cuts and shortages of US dollars, fuel and bread – bringing back memories of the hyperinflation of a decade ago that forced Zimbabwe to ditch its currency.

“We are tired, enough is enough,” MDC member Patience Gurure said moments before police dispersed her group.

In a letter to church leaders published on Friday in the state-owned Herald newspaper, Mr Mnangagwa said the economic hardship had its roots in sanctions imposed by the West more than a decade ago as well as a drought this year.

He also said Mr Chamisa rejected his invitation to talks. The MDC leader has said he will only sit down if there is a neutral arbiter.

“The doors of national dialogue are still open to all political leaders,” Mr Mnangagwa said. – Reuters

It was unclear what charges Mphoko faces.

The video, posted on Facebook by Mphoko’s daughter Siduduzo, shows a bespectacled man standing inside Mphoko’s home, while a second man stood in the kitchen.

Siduduzo and another female voice believed to be Mphoko’s wife, Laurinda, are heard telling the men that they are trespassing and must leave their property.

The man, who remains calm throughout, is seen carrying what appears to be a charge sheet. He attempts to call a man identified only as “Mr Mpofu” on his mobile phone, and then later his phone shows him to be calling a “Masiye”.

Towards the end of the four-minute video, the former Vice President – who was forced out following a November 2017 coup that ousted former President Robert Mugabe – is heard saying: “Ndoda, please phumani lapha. Hambani phandle. Outside my house please!”

When Mphoko’s daughter accuses the ZACC official of “doing people’s vendettas”, Mphoko echoes her sentiment, saying: “You’re being used by other people.”

The unidentified man then tells Mphoko: “We’re waiting for you Sir. If you’re not coming we’ll have to take you Sir. We’ll call for reinforcements.”

Siduduzo told ZimLive: “They claimed they were from ZACC and Hillside Police Station. They first came around 1PM saying they needed assistance for their investigation on other people. They further said my father had no criminal charges and they just wanted his assistance.

“They left and then came back around 4PM with a different story (wanting to arrest Mphoko).”

She said they left after Mphoko refused to accompany them to a police station.

Asked what the charges were, Siduduzo said: “Whatever they think they can make stick. However false it is.”

ZACC, which was reconstituted last month, recently arrested former tourism minister Priscah Mupfumira on allegations she leaned on the state pensions body, NSSA, to make risky investments of up to US$95 million.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has vowed to be tough on corruption, but his critics say ZACC is pursuing political prosecutions – allegations that sank the previous board of the anti-graft body.

Post published in: Featured

Zimbabwe has not had its own independent currency for a decade, relying instead on the US dollar and a local money system pegged to the dollar.

Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo said that reintroducing the Zimbabwe dollar has stabilised the economy.

But is he right? Reality Check looked at the country’s key economic indicators before and after the currency was reintroduced.

It’s true the economy is no longer in the extreme inflationary spiral seen in 2008, but there continue to be severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

Fears of a return to hyperinflation

The introduction of the new currency came at a sensitive time.

There was understandable concern that bringing back the Zimbabwe dollar would lead to a return to the chaotic hyperinflation which destroyed savings and made wages worthless.

The most recent figures suggest annual inflation has risen sharply over the last year. In May it was 98% and by June, annual inflation stood at 176%.

This is nowhere near the spiralling inflation levels of a decade ago, but the trend has not been encouraging.

We don’t have the inflation figures for July as the authorities have said they won’t be publishing annual inflation data until February 2020.

There’s also debate about whether the official number accurately captures the increase in goods on shop floors and at petrol stations, for instance.

Leading economists say it’s likely the cost of living is higher than official figures indicate.

Zimbabwe’s exchange rate with US dollar

Since the introduction of the new currency on 24 June, it has fallen against the US dollar.

This benefits Zimbabwe’s agricultural exports, mainly its tobacco sector.

But any positive effects are likely to be outweighed by more expensive imports, leading to further inflationary pressures on the economy.

The weaker currency is likely to have an impact across the economy, as importers struggle to get access to foreign exchange such as the US dollar in order to buy goods from abroad.

Taking a longer term view, the government has reduced spending since October last year and is now running a budget surplus, which it says is an indication of an improving economy.

Independent economists are sceptical about these numbers.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionHarare, Zimbabwe – where the price of goods has increased

Falling value of salaries

Public sector workers in Zimbabwe are paid in local currency and there are fears that because of its decline against the US dollar, and because of inflation, they are now, in effect, earning less.

Zimbabwe’s main public sector workers’ union, Apex Council, said in a petition that the value of earnings has fallen “from at least $475 to a mere $47 currently for the lowest paid civil servant” since October last year.

Cecilia Alexander, Apex Council chairwoman, said the government’s austerity plans had left workers mired in poverty.

Unions have, however, agreed a one-off payment of 400 Zimbabwean dollars ($45) to every worker in July, while talks on pay continue.

Post published in: Business

Bystanders assist a woman injured during clashes in Zimbabwe [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

Seven people were injured, including one in critical condition and 80 people were arrested, said Nelson Chamisa, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change opposition party that organized the demonstrations.

“There is not going to be any rest until we achieve a people’s government…we will continue to mobilize,” said Chamisa at a press conference, following a day of clashes between police and opposition demonstrators.