Executive Summary
The Zimbabwe Peace Project recorded various human rights violations in the month of
March. Civic and political rights violations were recorded in both urban areas and rural areas.
In urban areas the violations were mainly the denial of the right to freedom of assembly,
expression and association.
There was a National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) demonstration in Harare to protest
against government’s decision to fund the acquisition of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR)
equipment. There was also a war veterans meeting in Harare and this resulted in police being
on high alert and in the case of the NERA demo, police prevented NERA supporters from
delivering their petition to ZEC premises in their numbers saying only ten people would be
allowed to do so. There were also Zanu PF demonstrations countrywide against women’s
league members Eunice Sandi-Moyo and Sarah Mahoka.
While NERA and war veterans almost had their meetings prohibited by police and ended up
having stringent conditions to hold their meetings, Zanu PF supporters countrywide did not
complain of such restrictions. Only the ruling party political Commissar Saviour Kasukuwere
was accused of trying to prevent the political meetings from going ahead.
All citizens have a right to equal treatment before the law and the arbitrary manner in which
police are authorising or prohibiting political gatherings amount to discrimination.
In rural areas reports were about the denial of the rights to freedom of association and right to
food mainly.
The opposition MDC-T president Morgan Tsvangirai has been going around the country
meeting opinion leaders in various communities and this has resulted in a rise in violations
against MDC-T supporters. They reported that they are being harassed for wearing MDC-T
regalia or attending the party’s meetings.
The ruling Zanu PF party has been having its own internal contradictions and a number of
intra-party violent incidents have been reported. The ruling party is also perpetually
organising and campaigning and this has resulted in people reporting that they are being
forced to attend party meetings or denied food and other aid on partisan basis.
The month of March also saw villagers being evicted from Arnold farm in Mazowe and being
relocated to Concession. Minor children have not been going to school after being forcibly
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