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Student leader remains in custody
Students Solidarity Trust
October 17, 2007

A Masvingo magistrate has postponed again the bail hearing of jailed Great Zimbabwe University student's executive council (SEC) Edison Hlatshwayo to Monday next week. Appearing in court Hlatshwayo looked week and dejected. His health is deteriorating. He is being charged on allegations of malicious injury to property following the disturbances that rocked Great Zimbabwe University early September.

Six of the eleven students who were arrested on Monday night have been released without charge. This means eight students are still in police cells including the three who have been picked up this morning at Great Zimbabwe University. This follows several meetings under the Zimbabwe National Students Union dubbed "Free Edison Hlatshwayo Campaign". Meanwhile three female students have been picked up by plainclothes policemen while attending Hlatshwayo's court hearing.

The Students Solidarity Trust is of the conviction that the continued incarceration of Edison Hlatshwayo is a direct attack on the fundamental liberties and freedoms of students in this country. For long periods now, the abuse of the students and the consequent economic and political meltdown in this country is not merely an act of omission in itself, and does not occur by mere default. Rather, the abuse is a direct result of deliberate and systematic policies, which are all politically founded, in an unrestricted disregard for the disastrously negative and potentially irreversible repercussions on the welfare of the students in this country. We condemn his continued incarceration, the abuse has to stop!

Visit the Students Solidarity Trust fact sheet

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