Stop brutalising protest leaders

WHILE the Constitution now guarantees the right to collective job action and collective bargaining, freedom to demonstrate and petition, it is saddening to note that Zimbabwean authorities continue to disregard workers’ and innocent citizens’ rights by arbitrarily suppressing their legitimate activities.

In recent months, Zimbabwe’s disrespect for labour rights reached a new low when authorities used force to break up demonstrations called for by aggrieved workers who were demanding an end to the economic crisis faced by people and a reversal of the steep hike in fuel prices by government.

Although the Constitution guarantees freedom to demonstrate and petition, including freedom of expression, assembly and association, the government restricted this right in practice through the violent repression of protests, which saw the arrest and prosecution of several ant-corruption protest leaders, who have been accused with inciting public violence.

Apart from persecuting those said to be at the forefront of the foiled protests, the authorities have in the past also arrested labour union leaders, and at times targeted healthcare workers, who have paid a heavy price for standing for their fundamental rights, freedoms, fairness and justice.

Authorities must appreciate that the right to form and join trade unions, to collectively bargain and to strike are universal human rights and that peaceful demonstrations, petitions, expression and assembly are a mark of a functioning democracy.

Law enforcement agents’ vicious reaction to protests over genuine grievances afflicting their daily livelihoods is a blatant abuse of its power and is in violation of the

Constitution, particularly the right to freedom of expression.

While authorities clamp down on labour leaders, journalists and politicians, workers continue to suffer. Workers in the public and private sector continue to make do with slave wages and their families live below the poverty datum line, thereby worsening inequality levels.

The unprecedented economic hardships continue to be compounded by rising commodity prices, currency crisis, high taxation, poor remuneration and lack of access to health care services.

In the light of worsening economic hardships, government and private sector employers are urged to respond to the workers’ plight by paying them a real minimum wage above the poverty datum line and improving their working conditions, including access to medicinal drugs and functioning health facilities.

In addition, government should immediately stop persecuting union leaders, journalists and opposition politicians. Gwizhikiti