News / Press Release
Zanu-PF persecution of Pastors Mawarire and Mugadza illegal - PDP
07 Feb 2017 at 13:14hrs | Views
The PDP condemns the continued incarceration of Pastors Mugadza and Evan Mawarire; we view their arrests as acts of persecution.
Pastor Mugadza has been languishing in prison for a while for merely expressing a prophecy in a country where religious freedom is provided by the supreme law of the land.
Mawarire on the other hand has been charged with trying to subvert a constitutional government yet another laughable accusation considering the facts that the state are mistaking for evidence.
The recent arrest of the men of cloth and many other activists including Pride Mukono, Linda Masarira, Promise Mkwananzi, Fadzai Mahere and Patson Dzamara are a direct attack on free speech by a paranoid regime conscious of its omissions, commissions and is therefore afraid of its own shadows.
We want to applaud the US Embassy in Zimbabwe for condemning the totalitarian, draconian and fascist acts of the ZANUPF government. We also commend all the progressive civic society organizations and individuals who have raised their voices seeking the release of the two.
We however note with concern the deafening silence of most foreign government with foreign missions in Harare, we urge them to also add their voices in pressurizing the regime to ensure just prevails.
We reiterate our call Zimbabweans to come together and demand a National Transitional Authority which is the only way to stop the current madness of unrelenting human rights violations.
In the short term we expect the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission to investigate the violations that the state is perpetrating on citizens especially on constitutional rights.
We also expect the government to establish the an Independent Complains Mechanism of against the security forces as provided for in Section 210 of the constitution ,recently many activists have been abducted and at one point more than 400 social movement activists were in illegal detention with some assaulted during the arrests.
Pastor Mugadza has been languishing in prison for a while for merely expressing a prophecy in a country where religious freedom is provided by the supreme law of the land.
Mawarire on the other hand has been charged with trying to subvert a constitutional government yet another laughable accusation considering the facts that the state are mistaking for evidence.
The recent arrest of the men of cloth and many other activists including Pride Mukono, Linda Masarira, Promise Mkwananzi, Fadzai Mahere and Patson Dzamara are a direct attack on free speech by a paranoid regime conscious of its omissions, commissions and is therefore afraid of its own shadows.
We however note with concern the deafening silence of most foreign government with foreign missions in Harare, we urge them to also add their voices in pressurizing the regime to ensure just prevails.
We reiterate our call Zimbabweans to come together and demand a National Transitional Authority which is the only way to stop the current madness of unrelenting human rights violations.
In the short term we expect the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission to investigate the violations that the state is perpetrating on citizens especially on constitutional rights.
We also expect the government to establish the an Independent Complains Mechanism of against the security forces as provided for in Section 210 of the constitution ,recently many activists have been abducted and at one point more than 400 social movement activists were in illegal detention with some assaulted during the arrests.
Source - Jacob Mafume PDP Spokesperson
