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State accelerates attack on students movement, as police arrest 8 student activists and leaders in Masvingo
Students Solidarity Trust
September 14, 2006

8 student activists from Masvingo State University (MASU) were arrested at 4 am this morning (14-09-2006) for allegedly inciting public violence, after they had addressed students at the same university on the 13th of September. The 8 who include two MASU Students executive Council members, Herbert Mawodya and Muginji were arrested under the notorious Public order and Security Act, POSA after addressing a students meeting at MASU's Masvingo Poly Campus and are being held at Masvingo Central Police Station. The meeting was being held as a report back meeting of the ZINASU general Council meeting which was disrupted by Police in Mutare on the 9th of September at which 71 students where arrested.

Trail of sustained and calculated clampdown
The Masvingo arrests, follow on the heels of the detention of 8 other student activist in Harare on the 8th, the 71 who where arrested in Mutare, the arrest of ZINASU officer Benjamin Nyandoro at the ZCTU protests on the 13th and also the arrest and subsequent suspension from University of ZINASU President, Promise Mukwananzi earlier on toady, showing a clear trail of sustained and calculated clampdown efforts on, not just the Students Movement, but progressive forces in the country, as can be seen from the arrests on the 13th of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade unions (ZCTU) leadership, the arrest of 107 women from the revolutionary women's group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), and 3 activists from the Uhuru Network all for seeking to protest and bring attention to the ills bedeviling the country and a living wage.

Zimbabwean authorities colluding on calculated callousness
Coincidentally it is for addressing the same union, MASU, that Promise Mkwananzi is being suspended and charged for a year later. This is testimony of the fact that the authorities at the institution lack any respect for academic freedoms and students constitutionally given rights to assembly and association. The MASU and University of Zimbabwe authorities are clearly colluding on calculated callousness as evidenced by the suspension of Promise for events that took place in April of 2005 in Masvingo. What is more frightening and a cause for concern is the fact that Promise is being persecuted for merely exercising his mandate as the President of the national students union in Zimbabwe, and it si for the same reason he is being held without formal charges preferred.

Call for Solidarity
The Student Solidarity Trust appeals to all progressive individuals, organizations, and movements to act in solidarm by calling the numbers bellow and demand the release of arrested activists.

Visit the Students Solidarity Trust fact sheet

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