Own Correspondent |
Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services details at Masvingo Remand Prison are denying Macrad Trust Director Epraim Mutombeni access to food.
It has come to the attention of ZimEye.com that prison officers are citing Covid-19 restrictions as the main reason why Mutombeni has been denied food for the past 2 days.
ZPSC officers also forcibly dismissed Mutombeni’s lawyer Martin Mureri who had come to see his client falsely accusing him of using the opportunity to see his client as a way of bringing food for Mutombeni.
However, it appears they were under instruction from their superiors .
Mutombeni (28) was charged with undermining the authority of the President as defined in section 33(2)(a) (i) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform )Act and was remanded in custody to the 13th of July 2020 with his bail application denied .
The arrest of Mutombeni comes in the background of a visit by a high powered delegation of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission to Masvingo Province to conduct an inquiry into the evictions of the Shangaan people in Chiredzi District’s Chilonga and Masivamele areas. He was supposed to present crucial evidence to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, on the eve of his arrest as such this has raised the ire of civil society leaders across Zimbabwe as it is clear to them that the state is using trumped up charges to ensure that Mutombeni and other civil society actors in Masvingo Province are deterred from campaigning against the land rights of the Shangaan people in Chiredzi District.
His arrest was preceeded by days of key MACRAD staff members being trailed by unknown individuals in vehicles without number plates.
Mutombeni a Shangaan clansman himself has for the past 2 months been the most vocal critic against these eviction and his organization Masvingo Centre for Research Advocacy and Development released a damming report that implicated and exposed the government of Zimbabwe for not following the correct procedures and trying to forcibly relocate the Shangaan people from their ancestral land .
Investigations by ZimEye.com have revealed that a company named Dendiary Pvt Ltd which is believed to be Chinese fronted as the major beneficiary of these relocations and apparently in a recent visit to the area by VP Chiwenga local people embarrassed the Vice-President as they demonstrated in front of him with state security agents aso identifying Mutombeni as the individual who might have led these demonstrations .
Mutombeni is being represented by the Zimbabwe lawyers for Human Rights and his application for removal from remand at the High Court of Masvingo is set to be heard on Friday 4 July 2020.
