Transform Zimbabwe leader, Jacob Ngarivhume will spend another week behind bars after the Harare Magistrates Court delayed his bail hearing to next week Monday on the grounds that the designated magistrate was not available to preside over the matter. Ngarivhume who was the convener of the failed 31 July demonstration, was arrested together with journalist Hopewell Chin’ono on charges of inciting public violence. Updating journalists outside the Harare Magistrates Court, Ngarivhume’s lawyer Moses Nkomo said they will have to explore other avenues to seek justice for his client. Transform Zimbabwe leader, Jacob Ngarivhume will spend another week behind bars after the Harare Magistrates Court delayed his bail hearing to next week Monday on the grounds that the designated ma
The biggest single trade union in South Africa National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) says the President Emmerson Mnangagwa led ZANU PF has betrayed the revolutionary ethos and adopted violence as a means of holding on to power. In a statement on Tuesday, NUMSA General-Secretary Irvin Jim said, "Zimbabwe is in the vicious grip of a failed liberation movement which has dumped the liberation vision just as the African National Congress (ANC) has done in South Africa. The only way Zanu-PF keeps hold of power is to unleash and sponsor violence against its own people." The vocal Union leader was quoted by South African media saying the union was extremely irritated by the snail pace of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and the African Union-led by
July 31st Movement spokesperson, Honourable Job “Wiwa” Sikhala has said Zimbabweans are living like animals due to incessant political repression and persecution. Below is Sikhala’s full statement: By Hon Job Wiwa Sikhala 31st July Movement Spokesperson 2 August 2020 Enquiries are being made about my whereabouts and safety by concerned people of good faith, embassies, friends and relatives. I want to just advise everyone that God is in Charge. In him I trust. My present situation is exactly the society that Zimbabwe has become, where citizens live like animals; hunted and abused by the very same people who should be protecting citizens and their rights. This is the society that Eddison Zvobgo rejected. It is the society that Joshua Nkomo, Alfred Nik
SPECIAL envoys appointed by African Union chairperson, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe reports of gross human rights violations in Zimbabwe jetted out of the country yesterday after aborting their proposed meetings with the opposition and civic society groups under unclear circumstances. Baleka Mbete, Sydney Mufamadi and advocate Ngoako Abel Ramatlhodi met President Emmerson Mnangagwa at State House and were expected to meet main opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa and civic society organisations. The trio arrived on a fact-finding mission "following recent reports of difficulties that the Republic of Zimbabwe is experiencing", according to a statement by Ramaphosa's office last week. MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere said they had b
Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday reiterated his administration’s unwavering fight against corruption saying the door to graft has been shut warning that those who want to pursue that route would face dire consequences. In his Heroes Day address broadcast live from State House in Harare, the President said Government makes no apologies in its enforcement of transparency and accountability across the country’s socio, economic and political spectrum. “The Second Republic has, since its inception, accelerated the entrenchment and consolidation of democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law in pursuit of social justice and equal opportunities for the economic empowerment of the previously marginalised majority,” said President Mnangagwa. “Informed by a ca
President Emmerson Mnangagwa risked a diplomatic spat with South Africa on Monday after blocking two special envoys sent by President Cyril Ramaphosa to gather information on human rights violations in Zimbabwe from meeting his rivals and rights groups. Mnangagwa met the three-team delegation of Baleka Mbethe, Sydney Mafamadi and Ngoako Ramatlhodi at State House during which he reportedly told them there was “no crisis in Zimbabwe.” The main opposition MDC Alliance said Ramaphosa’s office contacted them last Saturday to prepare a five-person delegation to meet his envoys on Monday. In a statement announcing the Zimbabwe mission last week, Ramaphosa had said the delegation would “engage the government of Zimbabwe and relevant stakeholders to identify possible w
Main opposition MDC Alliance vice president Tendai Biti has slammed MDC-T leader Thokozani Khupe for knowing “nothing about intellectual property” and urged the rivil party to stick to its name which it used to contest the 2018 election. Khupe is planning to confront the Nelson Chamisa-led MDC Alliance with a court challenge seeking to stop the beleaguered opposition from using the name MDC. This follows a recent court ruling that declared Chamisa’s rise to the helm of the main opposition as illegal and that MDC Alliance was not a political party but a coalition. Khupe is planning to confront the Nelson Chamisa-led MDC Alliance with a court challenge seeking to stop the beleaguered opposition from using the name MDC. This follows a recent court ruling that declared
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday called criticism of human rights abuses by his government “divisive falsehoods” and said his administration was under renewed attack from domestic and foreign opponents. Mnangagwa, during a Heroes Day speech in Harare, said the allegations were “unjustified attacks by our perennial detractors, both inside and outside our border”. “The divisive falsehoods and concoctions by renegades and supremacists who want to pounce on our natural resources will never win the day. Truth shall triumph over lies, and good over evil,” said Mnangagwa, who replaced Robert Mugabe after a 2017 coup. Hopes that Mnangagwa would unite a polarised country and revive a stricken economy following the Mugabe era have b
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) says it is concerned about the treatment of freelance journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and Jacob Ngarivhume, leader of Transform Zimbabwe, who are currently detained at Chikurubi Maximum Prison. According to the lawyers group, on Saturday ZLHR lawyers Roselyn Hanzi, Beatrice Mtetwa and Moses Nkomo visited their clients, Chin’ono and Ngarivhume at Chikurubi Maximum Prison, where they were moved to from Harare Remand Prison last Friday by Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) officials. In a statement, the ZLHR said Chin’ono and Ngarivhume’s lawyers only came to know of the transfer of their clients late on Friday 7 August 2020 after they learnt from independent sources that the duo had been strip searched, sh
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa's cautious intervention in the current Zimbabwean crisis has got off to a rocky start, with the opposition warning yesterday that they will not be railroaded to accept any deals that they disagree with, as had happened a decade ago when the country's unity government was put in place. This comes after Ramaphosa announced on Thursday that he had appointed former South African vice president and Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, as well as former cabinet minister Sydney Mufamadi as his special envoys to Harare - "to identify possible ways in which South Africa can assist Zimbabwe". It also comes as well-placed sources in South Africa have told the Daily News On Sunday that Ramaphosa's surprise move followed preliminary talks within his
