The 36 year old Dzamara, an iconic figure in Zimbabwe’s pro-democracy movement was reportedly abducted by some unidentified men who were travelling in a white twin cab vehicle with a blurred registration number plate from a barber shop, where he was having a haircut in Harare’s high density suburb of Glenview.
Upon abducting Dzamara, the unidentified men reportedly accused him of having stolen a beast before bundling him into the vehicle.
Since his disappearance on Monday, his mobile phone has been switched off and he has not had any contact with his wife, family and friends. Dzamara is being held incommunicado from his family and lawyers. His detention is illegal and violates fundamental rights protected under the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Dzamara’s wife first attended at Harare Central Police Station to make a formal complaint about her missing husband. She was accompanied by the activist’s lawyer Charles Kwaramba of Mbidzo, Muchadehama and Makoni Legal Practitioners, a member of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.
However the police refused to accept the complaint stating that she must go to Glen Norah suburb to file the report, which she eventually did.
On Tuesday 10 March 2015, Dzamara’s wife returned to Glen Norah Police Station accompanied by Kwaramba and Kennedy Masiye of ZLHR where the police opened a docket on a kidnapping case under RRB number 2391750. Lawyers and Dzamara’s wife then accompanied some police officers to the barber shop where the law enforcement agents conducted an inspection of the scene of the incident as part of their investigation and also recorded a statement from Dzamara’s barber.
Lawyers have since filed an urgent habeas corpus application to compel whoever is holding Dzamara to bring him before the court so as to determine if he should really be in detention.
Dzamara, a journalist and human rights activist, has since last year been leading anti-government protests under a peaceful civil disobedience programme dubbed Occupy Africa Unity Square (OAUS) Movement and he is the spokesperson of the National Youth Action Alliance. The Zimbabwe Republic Police has responded to the protests by suppressing the demonstrations. Dzamara has, on several occasions, been assaulted, tortured, detained, abducted and has faced death threats from state and non-state actors.
Post published in: Human Rights