Civic society organisations have accused police officers in Matabeleland North Province of showing bias by banning their meetings Bulawayo Agenda director Thabani Nyoni, celebrating a court order overruling the police ban on their meetings, said they felt there was “maybe a politically-driven motive to disturb the organisation’s activities”.
“This is also the manifestation of continued crackdown on civil society organisation operations,” Nyoni said.
“This continued abuse of the Public Order Security Act (Posa) has denied the people of Tsholotsho and Lupane their right to express their views and participate in public processes like the constitution-making process.”
Bulawayo magistrate Tency Dube-Chipuma on Monday overturned a police ban on public meetings organised by Bulawayo Agenda in the two districts.
Nyoni challenged parties in the inclusive government to fulfil their obligations of protecting human rights.
Matabeleland Constitutional Reform Agenda leader Effie Ncube said police in the province had prevented his group from holding at least three meetings.
“The Judiciary is doing its job in respect of the new human rights culture that emerged from the Global Political Agreement.
“But it is the partisan police officers who are a letdown to Zimbabwe. They don’t want us to educate people of their human rights,” he said.
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Efforts to get a comment from Matabeleland North police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Sipiwe Makonese proved fruitless as she was said to be out of office in Bulawayo.
The officer on duty said he could not comment on the issue.
