from MARCUS MUSHONGA in Harare, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe Bureau
HARARE, (CAJ News) – ZIMBABWEAN authorities are again accused of misuse of the criminal justice system against critics of the government.
This follows the acquittal of three human rights activists on disorderly conduct charges, more than a year after their arrest.
A Magistrates Court in the capital Harare last week freed Robson Chere (aged 41) Samuel Gwenzi (40) and Namatai Kwekweza (26).
On July 31, 2024, state agents had pulled the three off a plane before takeoff at Harare’s international airport and held them incommunicado for nearly eight hours.
The arrests appeared to be part of an intensified crackdown on opposition and civil society groups ahead of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit of Heads of State and Government in Harare in August that year.
“The baseless prosecution of the three human rights activists shed a spotlight on unjust arrests, mistreatment, and politically motivated trials in Zimbabwe,” said Idriss Ali Nassah, senior Africa Researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“It shouldn’t have taken a year for the defendants to be acquitted, such cases need to end.”
The police had charged them with participating in an illegal protest outside the Harare Magistrates Court in June 2024.
United Nations special rapporteurs described the charges against the three activists as “baseless” and of “being used as a fig-leaf to target human rights defenders and opposition voices for calling for greater democracy, human rights and accountability in Zimbabwe.”
Initially, a Harare magistrate denied the three bail.
The High Court granted them bail after they had spent 35 days in detention.
Critics accuse the administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took power in a military coup in 2017, of serious human rights violations and failure to institute promised reforms to improve respect for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.
– CAJ News