Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Right2Know calls for Zim solidarity
Police brutality must end, SA minister told
THE Right2Know Campaign has called on South Africa’s International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana- Mashabane to condemn anti-democratic abuses in Zimbabwe.
Yesterday the campaign’s national working group sent an open letter to Nkoana-Mashabane in solidarity with Zimbabweans expressing its “deep concern” at recent events, including police brutality against protesters, police harassment and the arrest of protesters and journalists recording police abuses.
This, said R2K, followed protests and stayaways in Zimbabwe, prompted “in part by high levels of poverty, wage disputes, corruption, and the heavy personal costs of the introduction of an imports and exports ban imposed by the Zimbabwean Revenue Authority”.
Other human rights violations included an apparent localised shutdown of the WhatsApp messaging service on Wednesday.
“We call on you… to take all possible measures to pressure the Zimbabwean government to end these abuses and protect Zimbabweans’ right to political participation, protest and dissent, in particular.”
Nkoana-Mashabane should use all possible measures to help shield Zimbabweans from police brutality, and take “punitive action against those police officers who have been brutalising protesters; protect activists and protest leaders from surveillance and offer protection from internet shutdowns and protection for citizens’ right to communicate”.
R2K cited a public notice issued this week by the Zimbabwean telecommunications regulator POTRAZ, to the effect that social media users suspected of distributing “subversive” messages would be identified, disconnected and “dealt with according to the national interest”.
Police in Zimbabwe were harassing and extorting money from taxi drivers, they added.
They have asked for a response from Nkoana-Mashabane by July 14.
Department of Home Affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said the department was noticing slight changes in the travel patterns between the South Africa and Zimbabwe borders.
“There
‘It is time that
is no influx of