Midlands South Movement for Democratic Change Alliance has threatened demonstrations against the Gweru Magistrate Courts if two of the party’s senior members Amos Chibaya and Livingstone Chimina are not released. 

Speaking in Gweru on Monday, the party’s Chairperson in the Province Francisco Masendeke said if the courts fail to release their members, they will be forced to express their discontentment through a demonstration.

“We are demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Honourable Chibaya and Honourable Chimina and all those arrested and imprisoned with them.

“We demand that the state withdraws these clearly unsubstantial charges,” Masendeke said.

“Should these demands for the release of our comrades not be acceded to, we shall embark on a peaceful demonstration as imbedded in our national constitution so that we clearly show those responsible that as residents of Gweru and people of Midlands we are not happy and we have a right to raise our concerns,” he said.

Masendeke also said as a party they are also going to petition the courts demanding proper fair justice. 

Gweru Mayor and MDC-A Provincial member Josiah Makombe, at the same press conference, said party members have since been blocked from seeing the two legislators with only his lawyers and wife allowed to see him. 

“We went there to try and see him on three occasions and I was denied to see him they said only three people were allowed to see him.

“Later on there was a memoir that was written that said Hon. Chibaya and Hon. Chimina can only be seen once in seven days, which means his wife can only take food to him,” Makombe said.     

Hon. Chibaya and Hon. Chimina were arrested on the 16th of January 2019 on incitement of violence charges, alongside several other youths on charges for public violence following the January 14 to 16 national shutdown called for by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, and have been remanded in custody at Whawha Prison since as their trials drags on three weeks later.

Hon. Chibaya was rearrested at the prison on Tuesday 29th of January after being granted $500 bail by Masvingo High Court Justice Joseph Mafusire, just as he stepped out, facing new charges of subverting a constitutionally elected government.

The subversion charges are based on an article that was published four weeks back in the Dailynews on the 2nd of January 2019.

In the article, Chibaya is quoted saying “2019 is the year that we are going to send Mnangagwa packing. This month, unlike before, we are not going to toyi-toyi around the streets but straight to State House because that is where the person who stole our votes resides.”

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