This morning at around 11am, ZESN’s offices in Belgravia Harare, were raided
by armed police officers. The police officers also raided the home of Rindai
Chipfunde-Vava, Director of ZESN. The officers were armed with a similar
search warrant in both instances which entitled them to search for
‘subversive’ materials including desktop computers, laptop computers
containing such.
The offences police are pointing out relate to a violation of section
22(2)(b) of Zimbabwe’s Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act. These
provisions criminalise supporting or assisting any group to overthrow or
attempt to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means or usurp the
functions of government or to coerce or attempt to coerce the government.
The police were keen to arrest Rindai Chipfunde-Vava, ZESN Director and the
board members, including ZESN chairperson, human rights lawyer Noel Kututwa
and Irene Petras, Executive Director ZLHR.
ZLHR lawyers were deployed to attend to all the cases and will provide
further information as inventories of materials and office equipments seized
are currently been taken.
Post published in: News