Police have been implored to bring to book Zanu PF supporters who assaulted Annahstacia Nldovu, a Bulawayo-based journalist and some informal traders on Monday.
Ndlovu in the company of other journalists was assaulted by some ruling party members while covering the eviction of informal traders at the Fifth Avenue market who were said to be occupying vending stalls controlled by Zanu PF as they were not in possession of party cards and were not attending Zanu PF meetings.
In a statement, Wednesday, EkhayaVote2023 spokesperson Nkosikhona Dibiti said “the members of the fourth estate play a crucial watchdog role in our society hence their safety is important and guaranteed in their line of duty”.
EkhayaVote2023 is a coalition of more than 25 Civil Society Organisations operating in Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South.
The coalition also extended their solidarity “to the vendors who were violently removed from their area of operation allegedly for not possessing Zanu PF cards and/or not belonging to the ruling party”.
He added, “We also urge the police to bring the perpetrators to book to deter would-be offenders ahead of the 23 August election. Zimbabwe needs peaceful, free, fair and credible elections.”
Meanwhile, Advocate Dumisani Nleya who is based in South Africa has started a petition highlighting the challenges faced by journalists during the electoral period in Zimbabwe.
“The victimisation of journalists and other people has been going on since time immemorial in Zimbabwe and we have had very rough encounters with the ruling party every time we are preparing for elections. I am thinking that what they have done they are now crossing the line because if the journalists are intimidated nothing will ever come out, and we will never know the truth, I think there is a very big machination that is being planned because I am thinking that if they are now starting to intimidate journalists, they are trying to stifle the news, we don’t know what they are planning to do but we are actually thinking that what they are trying to do is to rig and nobody is going to tell the International community what they want to do,” he said in the petition.
Nleya said it is high time that the international community knowns in detail exactly what is happening on the ground, “ because most of these things that happen either come out in bits and pieces such that the International community doesn’t understand or doesn’t fully get the story or they don’t come out at all.”
“This time we want the international community to know exactly what methods are being used by the ruling party to stifle the news and to keep their rigging secret.”
Advocate Nleya said they are going to engage the Zimbabwean police, courts, and all the human rights defenders in Southern Africa including SADC.
“We are going to write to SADC, we will actually end up even writing to the United Nations because we want this thing to be known,” he said.
