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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Government suspension of NGO field operations - Index of articles
SALC
condemns forced closure of NGOs in Zimbabwe
Southern
Africa Litigation Centre
June
12, 2008
http://www.southernafricalawcenter.org/salc/newsroom/newsdetail.aspx?id=341508805
Over the last two days,
Zimbabwean police from the Law and Order division have visited a
large number of NGO offices, demanding documentation relating to
the structure and organization of these bodies and insisting that
they close their offices.
Those visited
include ZIMrights,
the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Zimbabwe
Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA) the National
Association of Non Governmental Organizations (NANGO) and Transparency
International.
The police
purport to act in terms of the Government Notice
issued on the 4 June by ZANU-PF MP, Nicholas Goche. That Notice
was addressed to all Private Voluntary Organisations (PVOs) and
NGOs instructing them to suspend all field operations.
Nicole Fritz, director
of SALC, stated: "Our partners in Zimbabwe are very clear that
no law exists which would allow such a suspension of field operations.
But even if there were such a law, the Notice was concerned with
field operations which many of the targeted NGOs do not undertake
and so cannot be used as authority by the police to force NGOs to
close their offices."
This latest assault on
civil society comes amid increasing reports of illegality: abuse
of the postal vote system to secure thousands of defence force votes
and secret registration of voters; blanket denial of bail to keep
opposition and civil society activists in jail until the runoff;
and a refusal to observe the law relating to accreditation of domestic
electoral observers.
Said Fritz: "In
recent weeks, human rights lawyers have been targeted as part of
a state orchestrated campaign - many have fled or gone into
hiding. There simply aren't enough lawyers left to try to
challenge all these unlawful actions. And now the NGOs are being
forced to close. The Zimbabwean government seems intent on ensuring
that there simply will be no possible redress left to ordinary Zimbabweans."
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