Tinashe Sambiri|Prominent human rights activist and MDC Alliance Youth Assembly member, Makomborero Haruzivishe, says life in prison is dreadful.

Mako spent 10 months in prison for speaking on behalf of suffering citizens.

Asked to comment on the prison experience, Mako Haruzivishe said:

Prison, you know, it can only be equated to hell…prison especially if you are a prisoner of conscience like me, it’s a kind of hell, a different kind of hell, with all the pains and everything, but however because of my strong will and determination, and the will to succeed, succeed in terms of achieving an inclusive and democratic Zimbabwe, in which all citizens’ issues and concerns are addressed, the…physical pain and mental pain I managed to ignore it, and because we know that it is not an easy road and great sacrifices will be made, others have made bigger sacrifices, others have paid the ultimate price…

You can talk of Itai Dzamara, you can talk of all these victims of the ferrets.

You can talk of all those victims of politically motivated violence sponsored by the state. So this was just prison, and it in no way changed my fuse, if it changed it changed them for the better. Because one thing that we have to remember is that for us to achieve our mission, we will have to remain resolute to demand what belongs to us.

The charges that I got in here for, if you read the Constitution they are Constitutionally guaranteed rights freedom assembly, freedom of expression, and they tried to criminalise that, it is awkward but it only serves to strengthen me more than what they wanted to, to scare me away and one word is with the people we are in charge, and victory is certain.

Asked if he received threats while in prison, Mako said:

” Definitely, from prison to court, State capture is a reality and getting into prison for this prolonged period, enabled me to see that we have a bigger fight than what we actually imagined, especially within our Justice system, we have a bigger fight and we have to pull up our socks and we need to be more concentrated, we need to be even more radical in terms of organising on terms of educating the masses for them to understand the problem that we are in which chiefly emanate from military state capture.

It’s unfortunate that we don’t have much time, it’s a security place and there was riot police all over since yesterday even today, so but I hope we will get more time and I can give you more details about these 10 months 22 days.”