ZimRights civil society group members are worried about the safety and whereabouts of their members. It is alleged that a roadblock was put in place specifically to arrest these ZimRights members – when in fact they had sought permission to carry out the Workshop. It is astonishing that people should be arrested when they have been given a green light in the first place by the same police to carry out the planned workshop. Access to lawyers should be the right of every citizen and if the reasons for arresting them were genuine why then should they be denied their rights to legal assistance? Colleagues who had brought food for the arrested members were also denied access and had to take back the food. Similar arrests took place recently in the same region where an MDC MP and a Priest were arrested.
Once permission to demonstrate, gather or to hold a meeting has been granted, the police should desist from interrupting or arresting people unnecessarily. Police should allow the free and active participation of people as citizens in politics and civil life.
31.5.2011
16:37
Police deprive people of rights
EDITOR I noted with grave concern that the police in Tsholotsho have taken it upon themselves again to institute measures that deprive people of their right to legal representation. Lawyers have been denied access to represent their clients who are said to have been locked up when in fact they had been given a court order allowing them to carry out an anti-torture workshop in Tsholotsho.