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Tuesday 9 June 2020

The patterns of abduction, torture and abuse in Zimbabwe

Abductions, torture and abuse have become the order of the day when the government wants to silence those who raise their voices in dissent. The government of Zimbabwe don't want to be challenged and when people challenge them they find creative ways of discrediting those who would have spoken or even silencing those voices for good.

On the 13th of May 2020 Joana Mamombe, Netsai Marova and Cecilia Chimbiri were abducted from the Harare Central Police Station by suspected security agents and were later on tortured and sexually abused by these same people. Instead of having a thorough investigation of what had happened to these ladies first, the government however chose to charge them with holding a demonstration during the lockdown,whilst they were still recovering in hospital. The fact that they broke lockdown rules was more important to the government than ensuring that the perpetrators of their abduction were brought to book. Their reasons of holding the demonstration were valid in that the government put the country in lockdown but did not provide the citizens with any means of survival during this period.

This is not the first time that citizens have been abducted and tortured in Zimbabwe and in all instances these incidents happened because the individuals were outspoken about how the government of Zimbabwe was failing the people. In the recent past Samantha Kureya was abducted and tortured because of her satire comedy which highlighted the government inefficiencies, Dr Peter Magombeya because of his outspokenness and in March of 2015 Itai Dzamara was abducted and was never seen again.

Despite the fact that Zimbabwe has a Constitution that gives people rights, the government has chosen on many occasions to deprive people of those same rights all in the name of governing. There will come a day when the government will no longer be able to silence the voices of dissent with their usual tactics but will be held accountable for every atrocity that they have perpetrated against their citizens....what a day that will be.


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