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ZPP documented several cases where Zanu PF activists violently attacked
Advocate Nelson Chamisa of the CCC during his visits to Mashonaland East. In
another incident in Uzumba and Wedza, Zanu PF supporters, the majority of whom
were said to be youths, confronted Chamisa before barricading and attacking
Chamisa’s vehicles. On 24 August in Chigwedere village Ward 5 in Wedza, Zanu PF
supporters went on to stone Chamisa’s vehicles. After the CCC Uzumba tour, elderly
villagers and persons with disabilities were reportedly brutally assaulted by a Zanu
PF Ward Councilor Fagio Zondayi Marowa, for attending a CCC rally held at Nhakiwa
Business Centre. Meanwhile, in Seke, Zanu PF youths assaulted CCC members
before vandalizing a CCC member’s car by smashing car windows and pouring sand
in the car engine. Reports indicate that more than 150 Zanu PF supporters blocked
roads that the CCC leader intended to use during the tour.
The rights to freedom of expression and association continue to be some of the
most violated human rights. In Shurugwi, a young man, Cuthbert Ngwenya, a Zanu
PF district chairperson at Hwinya Village, was severely assaulted by suspected state
security agents, and Zanu PF activists. The young man is accused of having
expressed unpleasant views to Zanu PF second secretary Kembo Mohadi at a public
meeting at Chachacha grounds in Shurugwi South. He was taken to Donga Police
station where he was assaulted on his backside with switches and truncheons. The
people who assaulted him included District Coordinating Committee (DCC)
members, police officers and Mohadi’s security details. In a similar case, on 14
August, at Pentagon in Epworth ward 2, a CCC activist Edwin Machokoto was
brutally assaulted by a group of Zanu PF youths on his way to attend a CCC ward
meeting. The perpetrators used an iron bar to attack Machokoto whom they
accused of wearing opposition CCC party regalia. He sustained a broken leg and did
not make a police report for fear of reprisals.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project
Monthly Monitoring Report