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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Violence, recrimination and arrests after policeman's death in Glen View - Index of articles
Detention Diary: Day 37 as political prisoners languish in prison
Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition
July 06, 2011
What must it
be like to be in jail - especially when you haven't
done anything deserving of it? This is the predicament of the political
prisoners arrested
on the 30th of May 2011 for allegedly
killing a police officer in Glenview.
To be anti-ZANU
PF in Zimbabwe has indeed in many ways become a political crime.
Too many perceived political opponents of ZANU-PF have become sluices
into crime, courts, and then prisons. In the majority of the cases,
the accused persons have been acquitted.
High profile
individuals such as veteran politicians and nationalists such as
late Ndabaningi Sithole, General Lookout Masuku, Dumiso Dabengwa,
and Zimbabwe's most celebrated hero, founding Father and Vice
President Joshua Nkomo were once charged with treason by this regime
but bar Sithole who died with treason case pending in the Supreme
Court were acquitted after years of political prosecution and persecution.
On two occasions,
the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was arraigned before the courts
charged with treason but was acquitted. It is now legendary that
the Mugabe regime uses the law to persecute and oppress Zimbabweans
who do not share the regime's authoritarian style of administration.
The accused
Cynthia Manjoro, Councillor Tungamirai Madzokere, Sydney Chirombe
and nine others who were denied bail by Justice Tendai Uchena of
the High Court in Harare last week continue to face physical and
psychological mistreatment in remand prison and this had not been
addressed as yet. Manjoro and other's lawyers on Tuesday filed
an appeal at the Supreme Court challenging the decision of Justice
Uchena to deny them bail.
The Coalition
calls for their immediate ad unconditional release. We call on the
Zimbabwean authorities to ensure that all known and unknown political
detainees are promptly charged with recognizable crimes in accordance
with international fair trial standards, or are released immediately.
Visit the Crisis
in Zimbabwe fact
sheet
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