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United
Nations Human Rights Council
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-25
Monday June
19th 2006 – Sunday June 25th 2006
IN the week under
review Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa addressed the newly established United Nations
Human Rights Council in Geneva, during which he provided the institution
with a clear example of government’s warped perception on the role
of non-governmental organisations operating in the field of good
governance and human rights.
SW Radio Africa
(22/6) and the Zimbabwe Independent (23/6) reported Chinamasa accusing
these NGOs of trying to "destabilise their popularly elected government"
after being "clandestinely" and "non-transparently" established
by developed countries.
Said Chinamasa:
"Their objectives include destabilisation and interference with
the evolution of our political process, undermining our sovereignty
(and) creating and sustaining local opposition groups that have
no local support base".
He then appealed
to the new UN council to "prohibit" direct funding of local human
rights NGOs by developed countries, saying if "any (financial) assistance
is desired" it should only be "channelled through the UN system".
Such unlikely
claims and his brazen attempt to seek universal endorsement of government’s
determination to further erode civil society’s democratic space
serves to expose the authorities’ fear of having their undemocratic
conduct subjected to scrutiny.
But while Chinamasa
dismissed allegations of human rights violations as "fabrications"
of the West and assured the Council that government would uphold
the "human rights of all its people" as provided for in "Charter
of the United Nations and in our Constitution", events on the ground
proved otherwise.
For example, during
the week the media carried six fresh cases of rights violations.
These included the arrest of members of Women
of Zimbabwe Arise, the barring and disruption of MDC gatherings
by the police, who justified their actions on grounds that they
were merely enforcing the repressive Public
Order and Security Act (POSA).
In one of the
reports, The Standard (25/6) reported that the CIO had "threatened"
some church leaders whom they accused of holding an "illegal" meeting
in Highfeild.
Reportedly, one
of the pastors, Bishop Levee Kadenge, has subsequently gone "underground
after he was threatened with death by a CIO operative" who warned
him that the intelligence agency wanted to "wipe him out".
To further illustrate
the extent to which the country had become a police state, the paper
cited other recent incidents in which "state security agents" had
threatened student leaders and workers’ representatives against
staging anti-government protests.
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