By Own Correspondent| Opposition MDC secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora on Thursday said that ordinary Zimbabweans felt abandoned by the international community over their muted outrage as state security agents killed and terrorised citizens during the January protests.

Mwonzora said that civilians felt abandoned by the international community while bearing the brunt of gross human rights violations at the hands of state security agents who killed and terrorised innocent civilians during and after the January protests.

He said this while addressing a Sapes Trust policy dialogue meeting in Harare on Thursday.

Said Mwonzora:

What is wrong is wrong, what the Americans did when they bombed Aljazeera (Baghdad 2003) is wrong. You do not go and bomb Alpha Media Holdings because America bombed Aljazeera. Where is the connection?

You are violating the rights of your people. If the American government would have shot people like what our government is doing, I am sure you would imagine the amount of outrage.

In order to suppress an insurrection you may need force, but that force has to be proportionate and reasonable. The people who were being harassed in videos that we are seeing were not in demonstrations, they were in their homes and they were being beaten by soldiers in their homes.

There is nothing that is being suppressed there because the demonstration is over. The people who are being raped showed there is no suppression of anything that is happening, this is sadistic and this is barbaric.

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Ndavaningi Mwangwana, however, said that the level of force used was proportionate. He alleged that he received threats against his family from people he suspects to be opposition activists.-Newsday