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Youth Forum Gender and Human Rights Programmes Officer released
Zimbabwe Youth Forum
June 15, 2008

Glanis Changachirere, the Youth Forum Gender and Human Rights Programmes Officer and former student leader has been released after spending four days in cells. She was charged under criminal nuisance Act for possessing what the police details at Bindura Police Station termed subversive material. The material included Youth Forum tee shirts, anti dictatorship cds and ZINASU fliers.

She paid a fine of nine million dollars and was strongly warned that she can be picked anytime depending with the orders they get from the top, they insisted that they had arrested Glanis, who is accomplishing her studies at Bindura University and the other three students under the instruction from the top . She was further told, "not to involve herself with issues to do with the opposition". As if that was not enough the vice-chancellor professor Tswana has summoned her for a hearing for putting the name of the institution into disrepute. She is set to be tried in that biased disciplinary committee on Tuesday next week. She is supposed to write her exams next week and these calls for a hearing are likely to further disturb her.

Glanis had been violently arrested on Tuesday this week following a search in her room by CIOs and they had refused to produce IDs prompting reasonable suspicion that she had been abducted just like what the regime is resorting to as way of eliminating activists ahead of the June 27 presidential runoff. The police had initially denied having arrested her. They later (Wednesday around 10 am) phoned Youth Forum Offices that they had arrested their Gender Officer and from Wednesday they were fruitless efforts by Zimbabwe Lawyers For Human Rights (ZLHR) to demand that Glanis should be sent court since it is unlawful to detain her for more than 48 hours.

Youth Forum takes this as an on-going retribution of activists, youths being the most targeted, to silence them as a way of closing all the democratic avenues to give Robert Mugabe underseved victory on June 26. It is from the same background that they have confiscated computers, files and a vehicle belonging to Students Christian Movement Of Zimbabwe (SCMZ) and arrest of its leadership. The closure of NYDT Bulawayo offices, NCA Masvingo offices Zim rights head office was also done from the same perspective. As Youth Forum we maintain that these are the last kicks of a dying horse, obviously they are dangerous but they are the final ones before dawn comes and we urge the nation to remain steadfast till the democratization process is finished. We do not afford to surrender considering how thorny, long and winding the road to independence has been.

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