Zanu PF scoring own goals
AT the time people thought the government has now reformed and breathing a new political life, the opposite is happening.
Last week’s arrest and detention of MDC Alliance vice-president Tendai Biti on allegations of insulting a Russian national Tatiana Aleshina, is clear testimony that a leopard will not change its spots.
This has exposed the new dispensation’s hatred of the opposition and selective application of the law or simply abusing law.
Judging from the way the Judiciary or our courts are handling cases involving opposition and civic society activists, one would be left with no option, but to conclude that some animals are not equal to others.
Arrests, harassments, detentions of opposition activists have become a common place in Zimbabwe.
Police and prison cells are being used to harass and torture opposition and civic society activists.
It has now become so easy for opposition activists to be fasttracked to prison than a member of Zanu PF to be fast-tracked to a police interrogation desk.
Vice-President Kembo Mohadi threatened his harmless and defenceless wife with an axe, but he never got arrested.
That is gender-based violence at play. If the rule of law was applied, by now Mohadi should have been locked up or appeared before a court of law.
Members of the opposition are arrested nearly every month and are given stringent bail conditions, some being denied bail a number of times and then released after establishing that they had no case to answer.
This demonstrate that there is selective application of law and opposition activists. It has nothing to do with whether one is guilty or not. It has to do with your political identity.
Instead of investigating and bringing Tawanda Muchehiwa's abductors to book, the government is wasting resources on investigating a spurious charge of assault against Biti.
There is an urgent need to reform our legal system. The Judiciary is being abused to cow opposition activists.
Biti is not the only one who has been caged for such charges.
Harare mayor Jacob Mafume was also arrested and denied bail on frivolous charges.