On the evening of Thursday 8 July 2010, Karikoga Ernest Mudzingwa, Farai Agnes Tete, Rev. Clever Valemi, Isaac Makoni, and Torevei Munhangu were arrested and detained at Charandura Police Station near St Josephs Mission, Hama area in Chirumanzu, Midlands province.
The five are Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, Zimbabwe Election Support Network and Zimbabwe Peace Project Independent Constitutional Monitoring Project (ZZZICOMP) monitors who had been deployed to monitor the outreach meetings in Chirumanzu area.
After their arrest they were detained for an hour, whilst the police searched them, took their cellular phones, noted down contacts, and read messages received and sent. They also searched their wallets and took their national identity cards. This was despite the fact that they had not preferred any charges against them. A memory stick belonging to Karikoga, who is also the ZZZICOMP Provincial Coordinator for Midlands, was confiscated by the police and has not been returned.
After an hour the 5 monitors were released on condition that they report to Gweru Rural police station at 08:00hrs on Friday 9 July 2010.
The five attended at Gweru Central police station in the company of ZLHR member lawyer, Brian Dube from Gundu Mawarire legal practitioners, where they were attended to by police officers from the Police Internal Security Intelligence (PISI) section. The unnamed police proceeded to profile the five and took their physical addresses.
After negotiations the police agreed to release the five into the custody of their lawyer without any charges being levelled against them. They were advised that the police will follow up on the issue of accreditation with the Constitution Parliamentary Select Committee (COPAC) and will summon them should the need arise.
Post published in: Politics