(SADC) and international (UN) summits. He accused them of staying in fancy hotels and
questioned where they got the money to do this.69
It was therefore no surprise when later in the month, attacks on human rights NGOs intensified.
On the 12th March, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition director McDonald Lewanika was briefly
detained and the Crisis offices searched. On 30th March, Abel Chikomo, director of the Zimbabwe
Human Rights NGO Forum, was charged with running an illegal organization, after two months of
harassment. The police are claiming that the ZHRNGO Forum should be registered under the
Public Voluntary Organisations Act, whereas it is in fact a Common Law Association, which is a
legally recognized entity in the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Civic leaders have been warned that there is an intention by the state to harass and interfere
with those human rights organisations that are most responsible for the collection and
coordination of evidence of human rights violations by the state.70 These are the organisations
that “interject” at SADC meetings.
5.
Social media, and censorship of expression
In February, a Bulawayo man was arrested for commenting on the MDC‐T Facebook page that:
“what happened in Egypt is sending shockwaves around the world. No weapon but unity of
purpose – worth emulating, hey.”
This arrest, based on a Facebook entry, is among the first such in the world. It reflects an
awareness and a vigilance in Zimbabwe’s security sector towards the fact that social media has
played a role in other parts of the world in terms of providing forums for organizing protests.
Vikas Mavhudzi, on the basis of these few words, has been charged with ‘subverting a
government by unconstitutional means’, and spent several weeks in jail before finally being
released on bail on 31 March. The trial has yet to begin.71
In late February, a Facebook page calling for a “million man march” appeared, launched by
unknown persons and calling for a million people to take to the streets on 1 March. This appears
to either have been the work of an agent provocateur, or of a Zimbabwean safely in the
Diaspora. In any event, on the prescribed day, there was no evidence at all of a “million man
march”, although the day before the march, the police in Harare drove their riot tanks through
69
Radiovop.com, 4 March 2011:Chihuri lashes out at NGOs.
70
Interviews with Harare civics, 4 and 5 April 2011.
71
HRD’s Alert, 31 March 2011: Facebook user granted bail after quashing of magistrate’s ruling.
30
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