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Magistrate
overturns Police ban on National Healing play after ZLHR's intervention
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
February 01, 2011
Bulawayo Magistrate
Rose Dube on Tuesday 1 February 2011 interdicted the police from
prohibiting Rooftop
Promotions from staging a theatre performance entitled "Rituals"
scheduled for Wednesday 2 February 2011 in Bulawayo.
The interdict came after Lizwe Jamela and Nosimilo
Chanayiwa of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) instituted
urgent proceedings in the form of an ex-parte application challenging
the police ban of the play.
The police through
Chief Superintendent R. N Masina of Bulawayo Central Police Station
had banned the public performance of Rituals by Rooftop Promotions,
the country's leading theatre production group.
In a letter dated 31 January 2011 and addressed
to the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ), a board representing
artists, which had notified the police on behalf of Rooftop Promotions,
Masina stated that the police could not sanction the performance
of the play because the government was already attending to issues
of national healing through the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation
and Integration.
But ZLHR lawyers filed an ex-parte application seeking
to declare as unlawful the prohibition of the drama performance
and to set aside the police order prohibiting the public show of
the play.
The police and their agents were interdicted from
disturbing or interfering in any way with the drama performance
to be held on Wednesday at Bulawayo Polytechnic College.
Magistrate Dube
granted the application which also sanctioned Rooftop Promotions
to proceed with the staging of the drama performance as scheduled
and promote the organisation's right to freedom of association
and assembly as set out in the Constitution
and the right to freedom of expression as guaranteed in the Constitution.
Visit
the ZLHR fact
sheet
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