The Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) has urged media practitioners to expose issues of organised violence and torture especially as the country heads towards the 2023 elections.
The organisation held a workshop with journalists in Bulawayo on Thursday to assist media practitioners to recognise and report on organised violence and torture.
Speaking on the sidelines of the workshop, RAU team leader, Shastry Njeru said journalists should immediately report issues of violence and torture whenever they occur.
“We were lobbying the media to be particular with organised violence and torture in the country to report it immediately such that we don’t experience it as a nation,” said Njeru.
He said the media has to be active in exposing these ills so as to protect society.
“We had media practitioners here to engage with this aspect to assist them in understanding it and its various components and be able to recognise it and report it, hopeful as we move towards 2023 elections and other political events in the country we will be able to recognise this as a bad part of our political process and assist the political actors in our country to avoid organised violence and torture or any form of violence as a process in which they will be able to protect their power or retain power,” he said.
“We also hope that the media will be active in this aspect, the greater part of our society would be protected and the energies that we use for violation and violating other people will be used for the development of our society and we will have a united society rather than a divided society.”
Njeru added that the media as an institution should use its power to assist in reducing violence.
“We also discussed about the power the media has, either as an abetter of violence or as an institution that can actually stop violence, so we are saying that the media must use its power in order to assist in reducing the monopoly of power in one entity and possibly create a polyarchy where the pools of power are quiets numerous and there is no one who says he dominates the political discussion or process, to that extent we have a democratic society.”
