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CSU representatives endure second night in detention as police plot to transfer them to Bulawayo
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
November 06, 2012

Three Counselling Services Unit (CSU) representatives will on Tuesday 6 November 2012 endure their second night in custody after the police detained them overnight at Harare Central Police Station and indicated their intention to transfer them to Bulawayo.

Police on Monday 5 November 2012 arrested Fidelis Mudimu, Zachariah Godi, Tafadzwa Gesa, James Zidzimu and Penn Bruno in a sustained onslaught against Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO)'s after raiding the CSU offices in search of "offensive and subversive material" from the organisation's offices in Harare.

Two of the CSU employees James Zidzimu and Penn Bruno were released from police custody late Monday evening together with Daily News photo-journalist Watson Ofumeli, while Mudimu, Godi and Gesa remain in police custody, where the police had not formally charged them by late Tuesday evening.

Police detectives told lawyers Dr Tarisai Mutangi, Tonderai Bhatasara, Rose Hanzi, Kennedy Masiye and Jeremiah Bamu from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who are representing the three CSU employees that they intend to transfer them to Bulawayo on Wednesday 7 November 2012, where they claim the offence which they intend to charge them for was committed.

From their interactions with the police, lawyers have been advised that the CSU employees allegedly defaced a bill board and an information centre in Bulawayo.

During the raid, the police confiscated a computer, some files and other materials.

According to a search warrant, issued by Superintendent J. Murenje, the police officers who raided the CSU offices claimed that the organisation was in possession of material that "defaces any house, building, wall, fence, lamp post, gate, elevator without the consent of the owner or occupier thereof," in contravention of Section 46 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.

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