Government is demanding “memorandum of understandings” signed between civic society organisations and communities when NGOs want to conduct civic education, Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust has complained.
ZIMCET executive director Gladys Hlatshwayo told delegates commemorating World Human Rights Day recently in Harare  that this was hindering their constitutional mandate of educating citizens on their rights.
“When we try to get into communities to have conversations with citizens we are then told that we are supposed to have things like memorandum of understanding for us to access those communities,” she said.
She added:“But we think the constitution is very clear in terms of giving us that mandate when it comes to spreading that information and imparting knowledge around the constitution to the people”.
“We still have undemocratic laws that curtail freedoms that are provided for by the constitution specifically association, we are still required to apply to the police to hold meetings and sometimes we are not given those clearances and this is hindering us from entering certain communities”.
The police continue to use the old Public Order and Security Act POSA to bar civil society organisations from holding public meetings.
Under these laws organisations intending to hold public meetings are required to write to the police seeking for permission to mobilise and hold such community gatherings.
In a number of cases the police have cited human resource constraints when denying Non Governmental Organisations permission to hold public meetings.