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Fresh assault on Murambatsvina victims
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
August 30, 2011

Police on Tuesday 30 August 2011 arrested three inhabitants of Hopley Farm on the outskirts of Harare under yet undisclosed charges.

In a fresh assault on the victims of Operation Murambatsvina (Clean-Up), police arrested Vengesayi Chingorima, Laston Chongo and Rodrick Mhurushoma and reportedly detained them at Harare Central Police Station.

Their arrest followed resistance by some Hopley residents who questioned and opposed the partisan parceling of residential stands of Zone 5 at Hopley Farm, where some ZANU PF supporters distributed and sold residential stands along political lines on Saturday 27 August 2011.

One of the Hopley residents' lawyers Tawanda Zhuwarara of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said for one to benefit from the partisan allocation, he/she was supposed to produce a copy of the ZANU PF party card while those who could not do so were turned away. On Sunday some of the residents who had voiced their concern at the partisan process were on the receiving end as some ZANU PF supporters singled them out and assaulted them. The residents reportedly alerted the police at Waterfalls Police Station. But on Tuesday 30 August 2011, some of the residents were arrested by the police under yet unclear circumstances.

Chingorima, Chongo and Mhurushoma are part of the residents who have been patiently living on the fringes at the farm and patiently waiting to be allocated residential stands by the government after they were dumped at Hopley Farm in 2005 from their homes in Mbare and other settlements such as Porta Farm after the internationally condemned Operation Murambatsvina, which left more than 700 000 people without shelter and livelihoods. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) has since dispatched a team of lawyers in response to the arrests.

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