16 Aug 24 | Africa, News and features, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is in the throes of a deepening human rights crisis ahead of hosting a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) summit on Saturday when its leader Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has deployed army tanks in townships and launched a major crackdown against dissenting voices, will assume the bloc’s chairmanship.
The escalating harassment of pro-democracy campaigners, human rights defenders, political activists, student leaders and ordinary residents, some of whom have severely been tortured, came with dire warnings.
There is evidence that the state repression was planned at the highest levels within the country’s corridors of power as speeches by key figures sparked off a chain of frightening events.
On 27 June, while addressing his ruling party’s Central Committee, Mnangagwa said “rogue elements” bent on peddling falsehoods and instigating acts of civil disorder before, during and after important meetings would be dealt with “decisively.”
On 31 July, George Charamba, Mnangagwa’s spokesperson told the state run media there was a foreign hand in efforts to destabilise the country, and ominously warned that locals involved would be taught “a lesson.”
“It would appear they haven’t learnt their lessons,” Charamba said. “They should know that the Government is not just willing but is capable of delivering to them a lesson that is handsomely appropriate,”.
It’s the same message that the presidential spokesperson sent out while serving in the same capacity on behalf of former boss Robert Mugabe who was deposed by Mnangagwa in a coup in November 2017.
Following Mnangagwa’s takeover, there was cautious optimism in some circles that Zimbabwe would turn a corner after 37 years of dictatorship, but Zimbabweans found they were in for more of the same: official corruption, state sponsored violence, widespread poverty, unemployment, economic ruin and general decadence in the country’s cities and towns.
Mnangagwa’s recent threats were followed by horrific repression on the ground enforced by terror. Human rights organisations report 165 people have so far been caught up in the campaign to suppress freedom of expression and assembly.
Some of those punished in Mnangagwa’s latest crusade include 25-year-old Namatai Kwekweza, a human rights activist, and three others Robson Chere, the Secretary-General of Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ), Samuel Gwenzi, the director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Monitors Platform and Vusumuzi Moyo,an artist and sound engineer who were forcibly removed from a plane at Robert Mugabe International Airport by State agents on 31 July.
They were detained incommunicado for several hours and subjected to torture and later taken to court. The African Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders which monitored the case of Namatai, who last year won the inaugural Kofi Annan NextGen Democracy Prize said “the torture inflicted upon her is beyond comprehension: being hit with open hands, clenched fists, wooden planks, and iron bars.”
Other human rights lawyers said Chere suffered extensive injuries that put him at risk of kidney failure and death. The Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights has since said prison officials blocked his medical practitioner of choice from attending to him on 10 August.
The latest crackdown by Mnangagwa’s regime has not gone unnoticed. On 14 August, the United Nations Human Rights Office said it was concerned by reports of arrests, harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders and political activists in the lead up to the summit.
There are now diplomatic efforts to push Mnangagwa to stop the persecution. The Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network has been writing to leaders of countries that will attend the SADC summit voicing concerns.
In one letter dispatched to South Africa’s International Relations and Cooperation Minister, the Southern Defenders chairperson, Professor Adriano Nuvunga detailed the repression. He said one person was charged with “public violence” for participating in an anti-government protest five years ago.
Nuvunga said the latest crackdown began on 16 June targeting 78 members of the Citizens for Coalition Change including the party’s interim leader Jameson Timba who were celebrating the International Day of the African Child at a private residence.
He added that that during the arrests, police used baton sticks and fired teargas at the group, resulting in injuries; including an extensive injury to one member which required surgery.
The activists are still locked up. In an interview with Index, Human Rights Lawyer Alec Muchadehama said charges like acting with disorderly conduct in a public place – for which activists like Namatai were tortured – are minor offences that would normally carry at worst a $200 fine.
He added that most of the alleged crimes fall into the category of what are known as miscellaneous offences, such as spitting on someone. For other offences such as accusations of illegal gatherings, police must just disperse gatherings, not cordon off the area and make dragnet arrests. He went on to say that as police know that the arrests are unlawful, hence come up with flimsy charges such as disorderly conduct, criminal nuisance and participating in an illegal gathering to sanitise them.
The human rights lawyer said the first bastion of defence when police act in such an illegal manner is for prosecutors not to take such matters to court.
“One of the greatest disappointments of our time is that prosecutors now take such matters to court as a matter of routine,” said Muchadehama.
Then there are courts who deny people freedom when the alleged minor offences come before them.
“Most of the judgments that have been handed down, I have respectfully disagreed with such judgments,” added Muchadehama.
In an X Space on Zimbabwe’s Human Rights Crisis and the SADC Summit organised by the Resistance Bureau on Wednesday, a former student leader Nancy Njenje who was constantly harassed by state agents and was once arrested and placed in crowded cells where she caught Covid-19 in 2021, said Zimbabwe’s courts have been captured by the ruling regime.
In one recent case, opposition leader Job Sikhala spent more than 500 days in pre-trial detention while facing trumped up charges of incitement to commit violence, disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice charges, with the courts denying him bail.
Njenge said the unfortunate thing about the crisis unfolding in Zimbabwe is that there is no coordinated effort to fight the status quo.
“Zimbabwe is under an institutional capture, we are not just fighting Zanu-PF to go, we are fighting all the institutions that Zanu-PF has captured. We are fighting the police, we are fighting the courts,” Njenge said.
She said people must not leave their struggles in the hands of the opposition but must use protests to express themselves.
In an interview with Index, Tawanda Muchehiwa, who is now living in the UK after fleeing Zimbabwe where he was abducted by state agents and tortured, said Mnangagwa has not changed his bad habits, despite his pretensions. He said Mnangagwa’s regime was desperately trying to prevent the emergence of fresh ideas and progressive thinking.
Unlike others who are languishing in jail after being tortured, Muchehiwa was lucky to get a scholarship to study at the University of Leicester where he graduated with a Bachelor of Law (LLB) last month.
“I was blessed to have good people around me who offered their kindness and support during this challenging time. Their assistance was invaluable in helping me reorganise my life after the brutal ordeal I had endured, allowing me to focus on my studies and healing,” he said.
As Mnangagwa looks for other people to lock up, he is at the same time preparing to roll out the red carpet for SADC leaders for the Saturday meeting.
Calls for the summit to be moved to another venue have been ignored.
One of the parties in South Africa’s governing alliance, the Democratic Alliance said South Africa, as a leading member of the region, must advocate for the summit to be moved to a location that upholds and respects democratic values.
“By abusing state machinery to violate the rights of Zimbabweans, the unrepentant ZANU-PF regime has demonstrated that it is prepared to go to any lengths to violate the law in order to entrench its authoritarian rule. South Africa, and by extension the SADC, have an obligation to hold the Zimbabwean government to account,” the DA said.
“Allowing the summit to proceed under the current circumstances will not only endorse ZANU-PF’s flagrant abuse of international law, but further undermine the principles upon which SADC was established. “South African opposition leader Musi Maimane went on to describe Mnangagwa as an “evil dictator.”
28 May 24 | Africa, News and features, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Two years ago, South Africa was named the most unequal country in the world in a World Bank report. This in a country where apartheid was dismantled 30 years ago. As the country goes to the polls on 29 May, inequality is proving to be at the heart of the debate which is stoking claims that freedom of expression is under threat.
Arthur Shopola, a lecturer in the Department of Public Administration and Local Government at South Africa’s North West University, says nothing has changed since the World Bank report and that failure to deliver for the electorate is due to ineffective leadership and poor management of public resources, corruption as well as maladministration.
He said South African citizens continue to enjoy some rights brought about by the democratic regime, particularly universal suffrage, but the ballot has not translated into the tangible results that people yearn for.
“Poverty, high levels of unemployment and inequality remain pressing issues for ordinary South Africans,” Shopola told Index.
Crucially, the land question remains unaddressed, he said.
“The right to equality is an area that the state has failed to promote. Also, everyone has a right to access clean water. This is one of the rights that SA has dismally failed. Just recently, over 100 people in Hamanskraal (Gauteng province) were admitted and many died because they were supplied with unclean water. There are many people in various parts of the country who still drink and wash clothes from the rivers. It’s sad,” he added.
Earlier this month, the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), released an advertisement featuring the burning of the South African national flag. President Cyril Ramaphosa criticised the advert, telling the BBC: “South Africans are more educated, empowered and healthier than they were under apartheid,” and people must not threaten that progress.
South Africa’s national broadcaster banned the advertisement, sparking outrage among freedom of expression advocates who said it sets a dangerous precedent. They also contended that the Constitutional Court has recognised that the right to freedom of expression is not limited to statements that are moderate and inoffensive, but extends to those that offend, shock or disturb.
DA leader John Steenhuisen, in a speech delivered on 9 May, said the advertisement is the most successful political advertisement in South Africa’s democratic history – with over four millions views online and millions more on radio and TV. He said it symbolises “how South Africa’s flag, Constitution and future would burn to ashes if voters allow destructive populists to seize power”.
Steenhuisen also condemned the banning of the advert.
“This attack on free speech and suppression of the opposition only confirms the urgency of the DA’s warning contained in the ad. The ANC’s clampdown on freedom of speech to protect itself from criticism is but a small foretaste of what is to come under the ANC/EFF Doomsday Coalition, which will burn our flag, burn our democracy and burn our economy to the ground,” he said.
Steenhuisen talked of the hardships that ordinary South Africans now face – the single mother struggling to put food on the table for her children, the unemployed father who has lost his job because the ANC destroyed the economy and the young graduate who has been reduced to begging on street corners.
The alarm over the possible direction of South Africa is not only shared by South Africans in general or the DA in particular. Vitalis Dhokwani, a Zimbabwean living in South Africa since 2018 after fleeing economic ruin back home, said there are tell-tale signs that the country could head in the direction of Zimbabwe. Dhokwani said South Africa is going through what Zimbabwe went through: corruption by political elites, abuse of the law, lack of accountability and transparency. He said there are similarities between Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu-PF, and South Africa’s ANC, both liberation parties who have betrayed promises of independence.
“People’s spending power has gone down and the cost of living has gone up. Health services were free to everyone but now even locals are paying,” said Dhokwani.
“South Africa is going the same way Zimbabwe went: corruption, rampant abuse of power. I really feel you can’t separate the ANC and Zanu-PF. These revolution parties abuse the tag of revolution parties. Just because they liberated the country does not mean they must make themselves rich while the poor get poorer.”
He criticised political parties who blame immigrants for South Africa’s problems. Dhokwani said South Africa is suffering from misgovernance and corruption from the people who were put in office.
“We can’t blame immigrants for failure of councils. How can one blame foreigners on service deliveries from council? Generally most immigrants are not formally employed they do self-employed jobs and some immigrants have even created for employment for locals as jobs are hard to come by,” he said.
In a statement on 6 May, Human Rights Watch said the scapegoating and demonising of foreign nationals by candidates in South Africa’s general elections risks stoking xenophobic violence. The human rights watchdog detailed a number of cases in which South African politicians had promoted hate against immigrants. It said candidates were pushing a narrative not just that migration is out of control, but blaming undocumented migrants for the country’s ills and engaging in xenophobia.
Shopola, the public administration lecturer, said politicians blaming immigrants were embarking on an opportunistic theorisation of the problems facing SA. “It’s a misdiagnosis. My worry with that theorisation is that it is loaded with hatred, not only hatred but self-hate and disingenuousness by those who push the narrative,” he said.
“What is failing is the laws and systems put in place to attend to issues of land, employment and the economy which is still in the hands of the few.”
21 Aug 23 | News and features, Zimbabwe
Despite his pledge not to curtail people’s rights when he came to power in November 2017, the past five years under President Emmerson Mnangagwa has seen the rights landscape shattered in Zimbabwe. Now we have another election coming up this week. What hope remains?
The world should have known better when Mnangagwa declared in his first inauguration speech that despite deposing Robert Mugabe through a coup, his predecessor remained his “mentor, comrade-in-arms and my leader”. His apprenticeship under a ruthless dictator has since proved to be a triumph for autocracy. Known as “the crocodile” because of the political cunning, Mnangagwa reigns over a country grappling with the same issues as before – high inflation, poverty and extreme repression.
After visiting Zimbabwe in September 2019, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, said he had noted “a serious deterioration of the political, economic and social environment since August 2018”.
Since tasting power, Mnangagwa has silenced dissenting voices and has used a captured judiciary to jail political opponents, the most prominent being opposition MP Job Sikhala and another outspoken critic Jacob Ngarivhume.
Sikhala, a lawyer, has been unjustly incarcerated for over a year for speaking out as a legal representative of the family of an opposition activist Moreblessing Ali, who was killed by a Zanu-PF member.
Citizens Coalition for Change President Nelson Chamisa
As Zimbabwe heads to the polls for general elections on 23 August, the political murders have continued. In this election, Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) President Nelson Chamisa (right) poses a serious threat to Mnangagwa’s reelection bid. During the last 2018 elections, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced Mnangagwa as the winner with 50.8% of the vote compared to Chamisa’s 44.3%. The opposition disputed the election outcome.
Five years on Chamisa is running for the presidency under the CCC banner, a party he formed last year after he was controversially removed from what used to be the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
Chamisa, a Pentecostal preacher, is popular and charismatic. He says though the political field is tilted against the CCC, something Mnangagwa denies, claiming the elections will be free and fair. Evidence suggests otherwise.
During the first week of August, an opposition supporter was killed by Zanu-PF members as they disrupted their rival’s rally in Harare. CCC activist Tinashe Chitsunge died when he was allegedly pursued and stoned by a mob of Zanu PF supporters in Harare’s Glen View suburb.
Victims of Mnangagwa’s regime go far beyond high-profile politicians and their lawyers. University of Zimbabwe student leader Gamuchirai Chaburumunda is one of many people who has been at the receiving end of the brutal regime. She was arrested with five other students while protesting against Sikhala’s continued jailing. Now out on bail and reporting to a police station twice a week, Gamuchirai believes that during her month-long detention, the state sought to break her spirit and instil fear in her and others.
Gamuchirai was first detained at Harare central police station and later at a maximum-security prison. She says she is haunted by flashbacks from her time in prison.
“I was detained with all sorts of people; murderers, rapists, drug addicts. Some detainees were pregnant, others even had babies. There were others in the psychiatric cells. The most heart-breaking thing is when strip searches were conducted,” she said in an interview with Index.
“We would be told to strip naked and be searched for any illegals almost every time we came back from court. It made me feel like detainees have no right to privacy.”
The intimidation is made worse by the passage of repressive legislation, notably the Patriotic Act, which criminalises criticising the government, and the Maintenance of Peace and Order Act, which restricts freedoms of assembly and association. An amendment to the Private Voluntary Organisation Act is set to further restrict the operations of non-governmental organisations.
The strongman behaviour has not relented and the electoral playing field is further tilted in Mnangagwa’s favour with the police, public media and the courts acting as an extension of the ruling party. The police have banned dozens of opposition rallies, for example, while the courts have been used to remove one of Mnangagwa’s presidential election challengers, Saviour Kasukuwere, from the ballot even though his candidacy had been accepted by the country’s electoral commission.
The government also issued new directives to restrict advertising by opposition political parties and candidates.
Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa-Zimbabwe) director, Tabani Moyo, said in the run-up to this month’s elections more journalists have come under attack compared to the last 2018 elections.
“Already we have seen journalists being on the receiving end of violations, the recent case being of Anastacia Ndlovu, Pamenus Tuso and Lungelo Ndlovu. These three were assaulted by members of the ruling party while covering [election] lead-up events. In 2018, the last election, we recorded six cases of violations; the bulk of violations then came after the announcement of the election results. This time around we have already recorded 13,” Moyo told Index.
Moyo noted that although the Constitution provides for editorial independence, observer mission reports from previous elections noted that the state-owned media was mostly reporting on the ruling elites. He said there is a general hidden hand instructing media content to be in favour of the ruling class.
He decried the latest move on billboards, saying by their nature billboards are part of a communications approach that political parties should all be able to access and utilise to get their message across.
“A billboard is a public square. It is supposed to be an area where we articulate our ideas. No one should tamper with opposing views,” he added.
Political analyst Ricky Mukonza said the muzzling of freedom of expression is something Zanu-PF is known for. He highlighted the attempt to pass the draconian Patriotic Act as a case in point.
“It’s simply a repressive piece of legislation that should not have space in a democratic country,” said Mukonza.
A week before the elections, reports emerged that ZEC had secretly conducted postal voting, in violation of the law, for police officers who were being forced to vote for Zanu-PF.
Chamisa tweeted afterwards that it was illegal and that these postal votes would not be accepted. But when the Zanu-PF are using all the dirty tricks at their disposal to retain power how will successfully contest this? It seems Zimbabwe is heading for another sham election.
02 Aug 23 | Afghanistan, Brazil, China, France, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Contents
The Summer 2023 issue of Index looks at neurodiversity, the term coined in the late 1990s to identify and promote the positives of variation in human thinking which has become more widely used in the past few years. Are old stereotypes still rife? Has the perception of neurodiversity improved? If not, was this because of censorship? Using neurodivergent voices, we wanted to know about this in a global context.
The majority of the articles are written by neurodivergent people, as we wanted to put their voices front and centre. Many said they did have more of a voice, awareness had shot up and the word “neurodiversity” empowered and welcomed a growth in onscreen representation. However, at the same time it was clear that conversations around neurodiversity were playing out along society’s current fault-lines and were far from immune.
Up Front
Mind matters, by Jemimah Seinfeld: The term neurodiversity has positively challenged how we approach our minds. Has it done enough?
The Index, by Mark Frary: The latest in free expression news, from an explainer on Sudan to a cha-cha-cha starring Meghan and King Charles.
Features
Bars can't stop a bestseller, by Kaya Genç: Fiction is finding its way out of a Turkish prison, says former presidential hopeful and bestselling writer
Selahattin Demirtaş.
Don't mention femicide, by Chris Havler-Barrett: Murdered women are an inconvenience for Mexico’s president.
This is no joke, by Qian Gong and Jian Xu: The treatment of China’s comedians is no laughing matter.
Silent Disco, by Andrew Mambondiyani: Politicians are purging playlists in Zimbabwe, and musicians are speaking out.
When the Russians came, by Alina Smutko, Taras Ibragimov and Aliona Savchuk: The view from inside occupied Crimea, through the cameras of photographers banned by the Kremlin.
The language of war and peace, by JP O’Malley: Kremlin-declared “Russophobe foreign agent and traitor” Mikhail Shishkin lays out the impossible choices for Russians.
Writer's block, by Stacey Tsui: Hong Kong’s journalists are making themselves heard, thanks to blockchain technology.
The Russians risking it all, by Katie Dancey-Downs: Forced to sing songs and labelled as extremists, anti-war Russians are finding creative ways to take a stand.
The 'truth' is in the tea, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Spilling the tea on a London venue, which found itself in hot water due to a far-right speaker.
Waiting for China's tap on the shoulder, by Chu Yang: However far they travel, there’s no safe haven for journalists and academics who criticise China.
When the old fox walks the tightrope, by Danson Kahyana: An interview with Stella Nyanzi on Uganda’s latest anti-LGBTQ+ law.
Would the media lie to you?, by Ali Latifi: Fake news is flourishing in Afghanistan, in ways people might not expect.
Britain's Holocaust island, by Martin Bright: Confronting Britain’s painful secret, and why we must acknowledge what happened on Nazi-occupied Alderney.
The thorn in Vietnam's civil society side, by Thiện Việt: Thiện Việt: Responding to mass suppression with well-organised disruption.
Special Report: Express yoruself: Overcoming neurodiversity stereotypes
Not a slur, by Nick Ransom: What’s in a word? Exploring representation, and the power of the term “neurodiversity” to divide or unite.
Sit down, shut up, by Katharine P Beals: The speech of autistic non-speakers is being hijacked.
Fake it till you break it, by Morgan Barbour: Social media influencers are putting dissociative identity disorder in the spotlight, but some are accused of faking it.
Weaponising difference, by Simone Dias Marques: Ableist slurs in Brazil are equating neurodivergence with criminality.
Autism on screen is gonna be okay, by Katie Dancey-Downs: The Rain Man days are over. Everything’s Gonna Be Okay star Lillian Carrier digs into autism on screen.
Raising Malaysia's roof, by Francis Clarke: In a comedy club in Malaysia’s capital stand up is where people open up, says comedian Juliana Heng.
Living in the Shadows, by Ashley Gjøvik: When successful camouflage has a lasting impact.
Nigeria's crucible, by Ugonna-Ora Owoh: Between silence and lack of understanding, Nigeria’s neurodiverse are being mistreated.
My autism is not a lie, by Meltem Arikan: An autism diagnosis at 52 liberated a dissident playwright, but there’s no space for her truth in Turkey.
Comment
Lived experience, to a point, by Julian Baggini: When it comes to cultural debates, whose expertise carries the most weight?
France: On the road to illiberalism? by Jean-Paul Marthoz: Waving au revoir to the right to criticise.
Monitoring terrorists, gangs - and historians, by Andrew Lownie: The researcher topping the watchlist on his majesty’s secret service.
We are all dissidents, by Ruth Anderson: Calls to disassociate from certain dissidents due to their country of birth are toxic and must be challenged.
Culture
Manuscripts don't burn, by Rebecca Ruth Gould: Honouring the writers silenced by execution in Georgia, and unmuzzling their voices.
Obscenely familiar, by Marc Nash: A book arguing for legalised homosexuality is the spark for a fiction rooted in true events.
A truly graphic tale, by Taha Siddiqui and Zofeen T Ebrahim: A new graphic novel lays bare life on Pakistan’s kill list, finding atheism and a blasphemous tattoo.
A censored day? by Kaya Genç: Unravelling the questions that plague the censor, in a new short story from the Turkish author.
Poetry's peacebuilding tentacles, by Natasha Tripney: Literature has proven its powers of peace over the last decade in Kosovo.
Palestine: I still have hope, by Bassem Eid: Turning to Israel and Palestine, where an activist believes the international community is complicit in the conflict.
