By Dr Masimba Mavaza | Recent election campaign events are raising questions about the role of police at political rallies. Many people wonder whether police are there to keep the peace or to do the bidding of campaigns.
There has been outrage over the video which shows police officers in Harare assaulting some people believed to be CCC members. The reports the incident heightens questions about the role of law enforcement officers at political rallies.
Zimbabwe Republic police has been inserted into the 2021 By Elections in ways arguably unseen since the 1980. A month before March 26 elections, a group of CCC voters marching to a location in Highfields grounds Some claimed that the police assaulted them for putting on yellow T-shirts.The police deemed the march “unsafe and unlawful,” while civil rights organizations referred to police intervention as voter intimidation. and oppression.
Commentators noted that there should be “a way to close the book on voter suppression and police violence if we are to start a new chapter in our story.
The question flying around is do we have a Police Ford that recognizes the importance of protecting everyone’s right to vote.”
The members of the CCC are quick to forget. The way we see it, protesters and hecklers have it pretty easy. They blocked the roads made noise and disturbed peace. In the colonial old days, this doesn’t happen because they used to treat them very, very rough. And when they protested once, you know, they would not do it again so easily.
The opposition did not only do this in Highfields just last night, but the truth is, this has almost become a routine part of their campaign appearances. Wherever the CCC goes there is chaos and noise and the CCC leadership will boast of having the West on their side should they be arrested.
But the CCC actually manages to disrupt normal life and peace then yes, there’s enough of a reason to ask them to stop and, if they don’t stop and it continues to be disruptive, to ask them to leave.
But sometimes things get a little grayer then these protestors are ejected by uniformed police, either on-duty cops or off-duty cops working security. If the protesters get the impression that their rally is being regulated by the state,courts might take a closer look. It comes down to whether the police are penalizing someone because of what he’s saying and not just because he’s being disruptive. As a people we must see that there’s more at stake here than just what the law requires.
The constitution allows people to gather peacefully. The question is not what happened to rally only. The police look at the behaviour of the people during the build up to the rally. The rally itself is not the problem. People must realise that they have a freedom to express themselves and have a freedom of gathering as they wish. But the most important thing is that your freedom ends exactly where someone’s rights begins. If the rights of the yellow donning demonstrators overlaps and infringe the rights of the peace loving road users and Zimbabweans in general the police have the right to disperse them and maintain peace snd law and order.
If the people are playing anywhere close to that line, you should be worried that people would think this is someone who doesn’t respect the law. If you cross the line there will be some consequences. The police are not tools they are professionals. The Police’s only concern is security and that it would not be arresting people in jail for protesting. The police constitute both a critical infrastructure and symbol of political power.
But they take no sides. They are blind to colour and slogans. Around the world, police and politics are intertwined in deeper ways than may seem evident. The Politics of the Police, engages with the seemingly inevitable tendency of the police to get embroiled in controversies and political contestations. Police and politics are “terrible twins” policing is highly sensitive to the political climate, and the process for supervising police chiefs is not necessarily apolitical.
Whenever Chamisa holds a rally the scene will always be violent and chaotic:
The situation of the rallies is always horrible the images reinforced a common and a valid complaint that police can be callous toward the demonstrators when seeking to preserve order.
So the important question
is How do police show enough force sufficient to maintain calm without becoming a provocation and without inclining to one side of the politicians.
In most cases people blame the police for deploying armed riot squad officers and tear gas and using them aggressively against protesters. But nobody takes time to see whether the police acted reasonably.
We know that officers must walk a fine line: to appear in control without appearing threatening.
That’s a very difficult judgment area, when dealing with the thugs in yellow. Some officers might be in uniform, while others are in plain clothes and some in yellow to blend in. Violent protesters may have to be kept separated or persuaded in a police way to go back home.
As the custom of the opposition some demonstrators come with the full intention of getting arrested, and some are causing problems to achieve their goal. The goal of depicting the government as intolerant.
The Police officers are in a tough place,If they have too many, they get yelled at. If they don’t have enough, they get yelled at.
The violence surrounding protesters that has been seen at several rallies in recent days has raised concerns about potential dangers at campaign events and in the electoral process in general.
So the police have no choice but stand up to the occasion. Those who come willing to expose that the police are violent will not be spared. The police are not going to allow lawlessness simply because one person is in yellow.
If you break the law the police will remind you and will surely deal with you according to the law. So this idea of blaming the police for doing their work is immoral idiotic and cheap politics.
It is true that the the opposition cause problem so that they get a reaction. The police even though they are aware that the people are out to have a confrontation they do not fold their hands they act for the sake of peace.