Activists acquitted

Seventy-eight activists have been acquitted after being arrested in Zimbabwe in June for disorderly conduct for allegedly planning to peacefully demonstrate during a SADC meeting. Voice of America reports that Jeremiah Bamu of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights is representing the opposition activists who were arrested in mid-June at the home of Jameson Timba, the acting opposition leader of the Citizens Coalition for Change. The activists were charged with participating in a public gathering with the intent to promote public violence and disorderly conduct in a public place. ‘They were all found not guilty and were acquitted on the second count of one disorderly conduct in a public place,’ Bamu said outside the Harare Magistrates Court. He said that with respect to the first count of participating in a public gathering with intent to promote public violence, ‘at least 11 of them were discharged at the close of the state's case’. ‘We then made an application for an inspection in loco before we begin the defence case in earnest,’ he said.

Among the detainees was Namatai Kwekweza, a feminist advocate who was arrested along with Robson Chere and Samuel Gwenzi, and forcibly removed from an aircraft. Later in court, the trio said they had been tortured while in police detention. VoA notes that Khanyo Farisè, Amnesty International's deputy regional director for East and Southern Africa, agreed that all those arrested should be discharged. ‘All these activists committed no offence but have been arbitrarily arrested and detained for exercising their human rights,’ he said. ‘This, in violation of Zimbabwe's constitutional and international human rights obligations. We therefore urge the government to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of all those detained for exercising their rights. The charges against them must be dropped,’ Farisè said.