Prominent Zimbabwean sculptor Lazarus Takawira succumbed to COVID-19 on Wednesday and will be buried this Thursday.
He was 69.
Takawira’s friend Olivier Sultan confirmed the news on social media. He wrote:
I am terribly sad to announce the death of my dear friend, sculptor Lazarus Takawira from COVID-19.
Takawira was born in Nyanga in 1952 and he celebrated women through his sculptures.
His mother was a traditional pottery maker and he held her in great esteem.
Much of his career was themed on the woman figure and he openly voiced his love for the women in his life.
The National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) director Nicholas Moyo had this to say:
Our hearts were immediately filled with sorrow upon hearing the news of Lazarus’ passing. Our most sincere condolences go out to the Takawira family which has lost a father, grandfather and icon of Zimbabwean stone Sculpture.
… The death of Lazarus is a big blow to the local arts industry. While he began working in sculpture under his brother John’s guidance in the early 1970s over time his style, subject matter and approach changed considerably as he worked almost exclusively in Springstone, an exceptionally hard and heavy local stone that gave his work a beautiful finish.
Takawira was a recipient of many local and international awards including the National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) (2008), Award of Merit, Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition, National Gallery of Zimbabwe (1993), Award of Distinction, Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition, National Gallery of Zimbabwe(1991).
He also received a Certificate of Excellence, Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition, National Gallery of Zimbabwe (1990), Award of Merit, Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition, National Gallery of Zimbabwe (1989), Certificate of Excellence, Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition, National Gallery of Zimbabwe (1988) and the Commission for Old Mutual, (1987)- The Herald
Statement by Trevor Ncube on the arrest of Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, Hopewell Chin’ono and Job Sikhala
The arrest of Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, Job Sikhala and Hopewell Chin’ono represents a chilling attack on freedom of expression by the State.
That the three have been charged under a law that was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2014 makes the violation of their rights to free speech even more pernicious. The words of Chief Justice Malaba are worth repeating: “Government is prohibited from appointing itself as a monitor of truth for people.” Muzzling those who call for state accountability is a cynical abuse of power.
What should have received urgent attention from the State are allegations of police brutality. The State has a duty of care to its citizens, and when there’s an incident that leads to speculation about possible police brutality, the State should reassure the public that it will investigate and hold any offender accountable, as was the case with the video of the woman seen cradling her child.
Zimbabwe’s constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression and the State must curtail its assault of this right. Over the past six months Hopewell Chin’ono has been in and out of the courts and Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on charges relating to his work as a journalist. An attack on Chin’ono’s rights to freedom of expression limits the rights of citizens to know what is going on in the country. The response of the state should be to set the record straight, not to arrest or harass those who express themselves freely.
It is the responsibility of the State to ensure the safety of its citizens, and to guarantee the comfort and security of those it incarcerates. Images of Chin’ono and others in leg irons is meant to intimidate those who dare ask uncomfortable questions of the State.
Issued by Trevor Ncube 14/01/2021 Harare
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance spokesperson, Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, has revealed that the regime is deliberately exposing opposition members to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
Mahere has been subjected to degrading treatment while in custody and potentially exposed to Covid-19.
“There were no temperature checks or sanitisers at the police entrance.
No social distancing is observed in the waiting area or holding cells. No masks are available in the cells and cellmates had old masks.
The toilet was a pit latrine surrounded by a puddle of urine. There is no separation between the beds and toilet walls as well as privacy during menstruation.
A pungent smell exists because of lack of aeration. The cell blocks are small and seven inmates were crowded in each room. You have to walk barefooted and women take off their undergarments,” Mahere complained through her lawyer, David Drury.
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance spokesperson, Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, has revealed that the regime is deliberately exposing opposition members to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
Mahere has been subjected to degrading treatment while in custody and potentially exposed to Covid-19.
“There were no temperature checks or sanitisers at the police entrance.
No social distancing is observed in the waiting area or holding cells. No masks are available in the cells and cellmates had old masks.
The toilet was a pit latrine surrounded by a puddle of urine. There is no separation between the beds and toilet walls as well as privacy during menstruation.
A pungent smell exists because of lack of aeration. The cell blocks are small and seven inmates were crowded in each room. You have to walk barefooted and women take off their undergarments,” Mahere complained through her lawyer, David Drury.
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance Youth Assembly leader, Netsai Marova has posted a strong message on Facebook encouraging Advocate Fadzayi Mahere to remain strong and resilient…
Mahere, MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono were arrested for allegedly communicating falsehoods.
Netsai, Joana Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri are victims of State brutality- last year they were abducted, tortured and assaulted for speaking on behalf of suffering Zimbabweans.
“Tears and sweat of the courageous are the only raindrops that precede the sushine to freedom for all.
The cock shall crow, heralding the begining of a new day. Hang in the people’s spokes Fadzayi Mahere. This too shall come to pass.
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance official, Happymore ‘Bvondo’ Chidziva has called for national solidarity in the fighting against Zanu PF oppression.
Chidziva denounced the persecution of MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala, party spokesperson Advocate Fadzayi Mahere and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono.
In a strong message to the Zanu PF administration, Chidziva said:
They want to silence you the People’s spokes.
Let the regime be warned this year is a different year, tanyarara zvakwana they must arrest us all.
We can’t continue watching as if these are people shooting movies lets put a stop to this …
Both the regime and us must see to it kuti for us all to be proud of Zimbabwe this must end either through action or realisation. We can’t be a country that is known just for political persecution.
By Son Of The Soil
Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Presidency is under threat as factional battles intensify in Zanu PF.
Party youths who declined to be named believe Saviour Kasukuwere is a better leader than Mnangagwa.
“It’s now 3 years after elections and Mnangagwa has failed to fulfil his promises.Mnangagwa hates democracy…
He only cares about his pocket and power. His 2030 vision is a joke. Mugabe had the 2020 vision and I think it was better than Mnangagwa’s so called vision.
Saviour Kasukuwere is the one who can rebuild the party, he is better than Mnangagwa.
We are sick and tired of Mnangagwa’s brutality.He is persecuting opposition members at will,” said one Zanu PF youth.
By A Correspondent- The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has recovered US$456 000 and vehicles from the US$2.5 million stolen in the cash-in-transit heist that happened in Gwebi last week.
So far police have recovered the following out of the total stolen in the cash-in-transit heist:
From the recovered money, US$38 000 was recovered from one Kelvin Musakwa, (25), a brother to one of the three ZB bank security details also implicated in the heist.
The ZB trio is caged and returns to court on February 18 after police successfully applied for a warrant for further detention citing that they were still following up on indications that could lead to possible recovery.
The arrest of Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, Job Sikhala and Hopewell Chin’ono represents a chilling attack on freedom of expression by the State.
That the three have been charged under a law that was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2014 makes the violation of then rights to free speech even more pernicious.
The words of Chief Justice Malaba are worth repeating: “Government is prohibited from appointing itself as a monitor of truth for people.”
Muzzling those who call for state accountability is a cynical abuse of power. What should have received urgent attention from the State are allegations of police brutality.
The State has a duty of care to its citizens, and when there’s an incident that leads to speculation about possible police brutality, the State should reassure the public that it will investigate and hold any offender accountable, as was the case with the video of the woman seen cradling her child.
Zimbabwe’s constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression and the State must curtail its assault of this right. Over the past six months, Hopewell Chin’ono has been in and out of the courts and Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on charges relating to his work as a journalist.
An attack on Chin’ono’s rights to freedom of expression limits the rights of citizens to know what is going on in the country. The response of the state should be to set the record straight, not to arrest or harass those who express themselves freely.
It is the responsibility of the State to ensure the safety of its citizens, and to guarantee the comfort and security of those it incarcerates. Images of Chin’ono and others in leg irons is meant to intimidate those who dare ask uncomfortable questions of the State.
Issued by Trevor Ncube 14/01/2021 Harare
By A Correspondent- Three Harare-based Zimbabwe Republic (ZRP) officers were on Wednesday hurled before a Harare magistrate on allegations of mounting an illegal roadblock in the city centre and demanding a bribe from a motorist.
Norest Nyasha Chikore, Osivinda Maphosa and Prisca Nyadongo appeared before magistrate Judith Taruvinga on a charge of criminal abuse of duty.
The trio was not asked to plead and was, however, remanded on $2 000 bail each.
Prosecutors said the accused persons mounted an unsanctioned roadblock at corner Leopold Takawira Street and Nelson Mandela Avenue pretending to be enforcing traffic laws.
They then arrested a motorist, Anthony Hwingwiri, and demanded US$30 bribe.
The whole incident was being watched by officers from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) who promptly arrested the three police officers.
-newsday
By A Correspondent- Seven people, masquerading as Zimparks employees have been arrested while attempting to sell fake Rhino horns.
They were arrested yesterday (Wednesday) in Gokwe, a district in Zimbabwe’s Midlands province.
Zimparks spokesperson Tinashe Farawo confirmed the arrest today on twitter.
Farawo could not immediately give the names of the suspects.
He said, “They are expected to appear in court soon. Zimparks managed to recover fake Zimparks ID cards.”
-State Media
By A Correspondent- Two Shamva men were dragged to Bindura Magistrates Courts yesterday for possessing fishing nets without a license.
Trust Chabvundura (42) and Tatenda Foya (25) of Tippery, Shamva, pleaded guilty to the charge before Magistrate Samantha Dlamini who fined them ZW$2 000 each or 30 days imprisonment.
Prosecutor Edward Katsvairo told the court that on January 12 at around 0500hrs, the accused persons proceeded to Daglin Dam with two nets intending to fish.
Takaruza Changanamu who is a security guard at Daglin farm, discovered the accused and intercepted them.
Changanamu asked for a license from the accused which they failed to produce, and they were arrested.
The nets were forfeited to the State.
By Son Of The Soil Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Presidency is under threat as factional battles intensify in Zanu PF.
Party youths who declined to be named believe Saviour Kasukuwere is a better leader than Mnangagwa.
“It’s now 3 years after elections and Mnangagwa has failed to fulfil his promises.Mnangagwa hates democracy…
He only cares about his pocket and power. His 2030 vision is a joke. Mugabe had the 2020 vision and I think it was better than Mnangagwa’s so called vision.
Saviour Kasukuwere is the one who can rebuild the party, he is better than Mnangagwa.
We are sick and tired of Mnangagwa’s brutality.He is persecuting opposition members at will,” said one Zanu PF youth.
The arrest of Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, Job Sikhala and Hopewell Chin’ono represents a chilling attack on freedom of expression by the State.
That the three have been charged under a law that was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2014 makes the violation of then rights to free speech even more pernicious.
The words of Chief Justice Malaba are worth repeating: “Government is prohibited from appointing itself as a monitor of truth for people.”
Muzzling those who call for state accountability is a cynical abuse of power. What should have received urgent attention from the State are allegations of police brutality.
The State has a duty of care to its citizens, and when there’s an incident that leads to speculation about possible police brutality, the State should reassure the public that it will investigate and hold any offender accountable, as was the case with the video of the woman seen cradling her child.
Zimbabwe’s constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression and the State must curtail its assault of this right. Over the past six months, Hopewell Chin’ono has been in and out of the courts and Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on charges relating to his work as a journalist.
An attack on Chin’ono’s rights to freedom of expression limits the rights of citizens to know what is going on in the country. The response of the state should be to set the record straight, not to arrest or harass those who express themselves freely.
It is the responsibility of the State to ensure the safety of its citizens, and to guarantee the comfort and security of those it incarcerates. Images of Chin’ono and others in leg irons is meant to intimidate those who dare ask uncomfortable questions of the State.
Issued by Trevor Ncube 14/01/2021 Harare
By A Correspondent- Jailed MDC Alliance spokesperson, Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, has told the court that the regime is deliberately exposing opposition members to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
Mahere revealed that she has been subjected to degrading treatment while in custody and potentially exposed to Covid-19.
“There were no temperature checks or sanitisers at the police entrance.
No social distancing is observed in the waiting area or holding cells. No masks are available in the cells and cellmates had old masks.
The toilet was a pit latrine surrounded by a puddle of urine. There is no separation between the beds and toilet walls as well as privacy during menstruation.
A pungent smell exists because of lack of aeration. The cell blocks are small and seven inmates were crowded in each room. You have to walk barefooted and women take off their undergarments,” Mahere complained through her lawyer, David Drury.
Tinashe Sambiri|A trigger-happy prison officer attempted to shoot freelance journalist Frank Chikowore in Harare on Thursday morning as MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala and Hopewell Chin’ono arrived at court.
Chikowore was doing his duty as usual when prison officers threatened to assault him.One officer then pointed a fully loaded firearm at Chikowore and threatened to shoot him.
The MDC Alliance has described the incident as shocking:
“This is how journalists are treated by Zimbabwe Prisons & Correctional Service in Zimbabwe.
Freelance journalist Frank Chikowore was saved from being shot by a prison officer today at Harare Magistrates Court while recording a video as @daddyhope & Hon. Sikhala arrived at court,” the party said in a brief statement.
MDC Alliance Namibia spokesperson Robson Ruhanya said:
“The country is being run by callous individuals who do not value human rights.They are ready to spill blood anytime…”
By A Correspondent- |MDC MDC Alliance Youth Assembly leader, Netsai Marova has posted a strong message on Facebook encouraging Advocate Fadzayi Mahere to remain strong and resilient…
Mahere, MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono were arrested for allegedly communicating falsehoods.
Netsai, Joana Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri are victims of State brutality.Last year they were abducted, tortured and assaulted for speaking on behalf of suffering Zimbabweans.
Said Marova:
“Tears and sweat of the courageous are the only raindrops that precede the sushine to freedom for all.
The cock shall crow, heralding the begining of a new day. Hang in there people’s spokes Fadzayi Mahere. This too shall come to pass.
By A Correspondent- Kudakwashe Bhasikiti has said he never resigned from ZANU PF following allegations that he recently quit the MDC Alliance to rejoin the ruling party.
The former Mwenezi East legislator was kicked out of ZANU PF in 2014 on allegations of being a member of the Mai Mujuru-led Gamatox faction which was reportedly trying to remove the then President Robert Mugabe from power.
Bhasikiti announced recently that he was dumping MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa arguing that his party no longer exists.
He said:
I was not kicked out of the MDC Alliance but I had to quit after realising that I could no longer belong to a party which does not exist. I supported Chamisa but since he no longer has a party, I decided to leave him.
Now people are attacking my person saying I want to go back to Zanu PF but I want to tell them that I never resigned from Zanu PF.
Everyone likes the old Zanu PF which believed in the politics of gutsaruzhinji. Unfortunately, the current Zanu PF has derailed from that principle and if they mend their ways I would support them.
What I wanted was for MDC Alliance to become ideologically like Zanu PF during its founding days but they have refused.
After the 2017 military coup of 2017 which ousted Mugabe from power and scattered G40 functionaries, Bhasikiti tried to find his way into Zanu PF after pleading with the Zanu PF Masvingo Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) for readmission but he was turned down.
By A Correspondent- A villainous robber broke into a couple’s bedroom at night and forced them to be intimate while recording a video, after robbing them of cash.
Luzondano Mudenda (31) of Moniff low-density suburb in Beitbridge allegedly sprayed the couple with an irritant before robbing them of property worth R6 570.
He was dragged before Beitbridge magistrate Toindepi Zhou on Tuesday charged with robbery and possession of dangerous drugs.
Mudenda denied the charges but was remanded in custody to February 16 for trial.
The State alleged that Mudenda, in the company of accomplices who are still at large, broke into businessman Edson Moyo’s house on January 5 at around 1 AM wielding machetes, axes and logs.
Prosecutor Munyonga Kuvarega further alleged that the robbers assaulted Moyo and his wife with an axe handle and stole valuables such as mobile phones, a radio, diamond rings, necklaces, R570 and groceries worth R6 570.
The suspects allegedly later forced Moyo and his wife to be intimate while they recorded a video before spraying them with an irritant.
Mudenda’s luck however ran out when Moyo saw him on 9 January at 3 PM and made a police report which led to his arrest.
By A Correspondent- The South Africa National Defence Force (SANDF) has started deploying helicopters to patrol over the Limpopo River and 108 people using illegal crossing points have since been nabbed.
The air patrols follow this week’s decision by the South African government to close its borders, including Beitbridge Border Post.
A recent report by the International Organisation Migration concluded that there would be a spike in Covid-19 cases in both countries due to illegal activities at the border.
The SANDF said Wednesday 108 undocumented persons had been nabbed and goods worth R200 000 had been recovered following air operations it conducted. It also said illicit cigarettes worth R 466 107 had been seized.
Early this month, South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the SANDF will be deploying helicopters to hover above the Limpopo River and the SAPS will have boats in it.
The minister said this after inspecting the Beitbridge border, where he saw dozens of Zimbabweans trying to make their way illegally into South Africa.
“You can’t just come with your fraudulent documents. The person who wants to enter your country with a fraudulent document is undermining your sovereignty, is undermining the order in your country, is undermining al the laws,” the minister said.
-wires
By A Correspondent- Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono is likely to be jailed for 20 years if convicted for communicating falsehoods, a Harare magistrate heard yesterday.
This was revealed by an investigating officer from the CID Harare Law and Order section, Lovemore Marwisa, while giving evidence before magistrate Lazini Ncube, where he argued that the accused was not eligible for bail because he was likely to abscond considering the possible penalty for the offence he was facing.
“We have overwhelming evidence against the accused as we managed to retrieve the chats that he posted on his Facebook and Twitter accounts while committing the offence. We also have an affidavit prepared by the woman whose child was falsely reported to be dead,” Marwisa said.
“The accused is facing a level 14 offence, which when convicted, he is likely to be sentenced to a jail term not exceeding 20 years,” he said.
The State, represented by prosecutor Nancy Chandakaona, opposed the granting of bail on the basis that he was facing a serious offence, hence was likely to abscond if granted bail.
This was after Ncube had dismissed his application to challenge placement on remand.
Chin’ono, MDC Alliance deputy chairperson Job Sikhala and the MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere, who are facing a similar charge of publishing falsehoods, argued in court that section 31(a)(iii) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, which they were being charged under, was actually a “non-existent” law.
But Ncube ruled that there were only minor amendments to that law, which involved a few words. The magistrate insisted that the whole section was still in existence.
Chin’ono allegedly posted falsehoods on Twitter to the effect that a police officer had killed a baby with a truncheon. This was after a video of the incident went viral on social media.
Police, however, dismissed the reports, saying the child was alive and that both the mother and the child had not sustained any injuries following the scuffle with a Harare police officer.
The police, however, did not publish the identity of the woman.
Chin’ono’s lawyer Harrison Nkomo said his client was not likely to abscond since he had already surrendered his passport to the State as part of his bail conditions on other pending cases.
Chin’ono also stands accused of inciting public violence and obstructing or defeating the course of justice.
He was denied bail at the magistrates’ court on both charges, but was later granted bail at the High Court after several attempts.
Through his lawyers, Chin’ono complained that the prison officers were defying court orders after they failed to isolate him from other inmates although he was a COVID-19 suspect.
The prison officers were also said to have defied a court order to the effect that Chin’ono must not be brought to court in leg irons.
A prison officer told the court that his superiors were demanding a written court order so as to comply with the directives.-newsday
By A Correspondent- Jailed MDC Alliance deputy chairperson Job Sikhala, who is being charged on allegations of communicating falsehoods through social media, yesterday wept in court, lamenting that he was being abused by prison officials.
Sikhala complained saying that it was inhuman treatment for him to be brought before the courts in leg irons and handcuffed, adding that this was in defiance of a court order barring the prison officials from handcuffing and putting leg irons on accused persons in the court.
Prison officers had argued that there was no problem in them handcuffing or placing leg irons on prisoners from the remand prison to the courts.
Harare magistrate Ngoni Nduna, however, dismissed the application, in which he was challenging being placed on remand.
Sikhala was arguing that the law under which he was being charged was non-existent.
He is being charged under section 31(a)(iii) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
Appearing for the State, prosecutor Lancelot Mutsokoti alleged that Sikhala used a Facebook account under the name “Job Wiwa Sikhala” and falsely published that a police officer had killed a nine-month-old child, allegations which the police have dismissed.
Addressing journalists outside the courtroom prior to the proceedings, Sikhala said he was not a criminal and did not deserve to be treated like one.
“There are real criminals who have stolen money in our country, and who have committed very heinous crimes through corruption but they have never been treated this way. I have not committed any crime, but I am being ill treated,” Sikhala said.
In the courtroom, Sikhala fumed and went on to threaten a prison officer saying that he would charge towards him if he dared come near him.
He said he (prison officer) was the one who orchestrated all the abuse he was subjected to.
“Usaswedera padhuze neni mudhara iwe. Usanditarira mhani (Don’t come near me you old man. Don’t look at me). We are humans, we are humans, why this ill-treatment?” Sikhala shouted, as he charged towards the senior prison officer, before he broke into tears.
The prison officer had to retreat as Sikhala threatened him, and Jacob Ngarivhume, the Transform Zimbabwe leader, who had attended court in solidarity with Sikhala, consoled him.
So bitter was Sikhala that the magistrate had to reprimand him against interjecting during court proceedings.
Sikhala’s lawyer Jeremiah Bamu told the court that it was unconstitutional for the prison officers to bring an unconvicted person in handcuffs and leg irons to court.
Nduna ordered a superior in the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services to appear before him so that he explained why they were defying court orders.-Newsday
By A Correspondent- Chitungwiza residents are up in arms with their local authority yesterday after council revealed plans to demolish over 11 000 illegal structures, subject to a court order.
The uproar came after the director of works, David Duma on Tuesday indicated that council had identified 40 houses set to be demolished immediately.
However, residents said this was not the right time for demolitions as the country was battling to contain the COVID-19 pandemic which is ravaging the country.
They described the demolitions as political games involving two political parties Zanu-PF and the MDC Alliance adding that they would not sit on their laurels as demolitions took place.
“First and foremost, in terms of legal statutes and in line with the devolution principles, the relevant council committees the housing and the public works committees were supposed to meet and make recommendations to the full council meeting,” the Chitungwiza and Manyame Rural Residents Association (Camera) director Marvelous Khumalo told NewsDay.
“A full council meeting could have been convened and a resolution passed which could have been sent to central government. However, in this case, they did not sit down. You would then ask where this kind of resolution emanated from when most of the councillors are not aware of it,” he said.
Chitungwiza Residents Trust director Alice Kuvheya described the move to demolish houses as ill-timed and illegal.
“Yes, we heard about it through the newspapers. However, you can’t do this during this time of the year when it is raining and when there is a COVID-19-induced lockdown. Where was the council all these years when people were putting up these structures? We have ascertained that some of the affected residents have been paying their rates to the council and they have been staying in these houses for many years.”
Chitungwiza Municipality spokesperson Lovemore Meya said there was no council resolution on demolitions, adding that the hullaballoo was caused by a leaked internal communication which went viral.
“It’s not yet official. It is only that the document which was still being worked on internally was leaked. However, as council, we would like to urge people not to construct illegal structures without council approval because demolitions will definitely come,” Meya said.
Gift Kurupati, the secretarygeneral of the Chitungwiza Progressive Residents Associations (Chipra) said:
“What we know and have seen as residents is that it’s a government order that was given by the provincial development co-ordinator, Tafadzwa Muguti, and a directive was issued to the same by the Minister of Local Government (July Moyo) directing council to provide sites. That shows that it is not council on its own which is ordering the demolitions.”
Residents also questioned the manner in which Muguti allegedly interfered in the day-to-day running of Chitungwiza council.
However, Muguti indicated that he will work hard to bring sanity to the local authorities under his jurisdiction.
Chitungwiza Municipality has over the years threatened to demolish thousands of houses built on spaces reserved for clinics, churches, schools, cemeteries, recreational activities, roads and under high-voltage electricity pylons.-Newsday
By A Correspondent- Concerned medical experts have implored the government to follow the example of South Africa and close all its land borders, to curb the alarming spread of coronavirus in the country.
Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, the experts also said they were worried that authorities were taking too long to reveal their plans for acquiring and administering much-needed Covid-19 vaccines.
This comes as Zimbabwe is battling to contain the ever rising cases of the deadly respiratory disease – which had killed a total of 528 people by Monday, amid growing concerns over the lack of regard for the country’s latest hard lockdown by ordinary people.
The calls for tougher coronavirus measures come after neighbouring South Africa closed all its 20 land borders on Monday, as President
Cyril Ramaphosa and his government continue to battle the worst pandemic outbreak on the African continent.
Bulawayo-based medical expert, Solwayo Ngwenya, told the Daily News yesterday that authorities needed to further restrict the movement of people into the country – adding that closing land borders would help curb the prevalence of the virus in local communities.
“The closure of borders … is going to help a lot in controlling the movement of people and the transmission of the virus, and the importation of the new variant ravaging our neighbours.
“We should have kept them closed, and with the way things are going right now, the government will soon be forced to do a stricter lockdown that includes the closure of borders depending on how the population is behaving.
“If they do, that would be a welcome development in the fight to curtail the spread of Covid-19,” the highly-regarded Ngwenya said.
The president of the Zimbabwe Nurses Association (Zina), Enock Dongo, accused the government of failing to take advice from health experts, whom he said had told authorities to close borders before the festive season.
“The issue of closing borders is long overdue. We have the challenge as Africans that we only react when we have seen the danger.
“We spoke about this before Christmas, but we were not taken seriously, and yet we ended up seeing people coming in with fake Covid-19 certificates, bribing border officials.
“Right now we do not even know how far that affected us. We must close our borders immediately,” Dongo told the Daily News.
Meanwhile, Dongo also said the government was taking too long to prepare the nation for Covid-19 vaccines – amid fears among some people that they could have fatal side effects.
“The issue of vaccines shows the lack of urgency on our part. In South Africa, the president has allayed fears that the vaccines will work against people by giving details of how they were going to do it in terms of the doses required, the type they would use and the criteria of who will be vaccinated first.
“In our case, there is zero awareness and no official communication on all those things. It is our thinking that the government should prepare … people psychologically … by availing such important information.
“It is the responsibility of the government to tell the nation about the possible negative effects based on scientific research. Maybe they are quiet because that is what they are doing,” Dongo further told the Daily News.
But the president of the Senior Hospital Doctors Association (SHDA), Shingai Nyaguse, said authorities needed to tighten restrictions on people’s movements – as the majority of cases were local transmissions.
“Our government needs to tailor its solutions to the problems at hand. The main source of cases now is local transmission rather than cross-border transmission.
“The government must strengthen local transmission containment measures instead, and tighten border movement enforcement rules.
“There is an urgent need to capacitate rapid response teams in all provinces and districts,” Nyaguse told the Daily News.
All this comes as there are concerns of a growing lack of discipline and adherence to lockdown restrictions by citizens.
This week, the police said they were worried by increasing acts of indifference to the disease and a general disregard for the current stay-at-home order.
“The police have also noted with concern that people are not observing physical distancing and putting on masks, while many are also gathering at markets.
“Bars are also being opened, with their owners playing hide and seek with the police … and we want to warn the public that they must not cry foul when they are arrested.
“We also call upon the public to report to the police those who disregard the regulations for their own safety,” national police spokesperson, Paul Nyathi, told the Daily News.
This comes as Zimbabwe has entered the second week of a hard national lockdown announced by authorities to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the country.
However, and despite imposing the tough stay-at-home order, the country has so far failed to significantly lower the number of people dying from the virulent disease.
Also worryingly, the number of people recovering from Covid-19 has being diminishing in recent weeks, amid spiralling cases of those infected by the novel virus.
Among the measures that the country has taken to contain Covid-19 include the re-introduction of a fresh dusk-to-dawn curfew.
In addition, the operations of all businesses – except those providing essential services – have also once again been suspended for 30 days, as authorities battle to curb the spread of the lethal disease.
The re-imposed dusk-to-dawn curfew means that people are prohibited from being out and about between 6pm and 6am, except for those providing essential services.
In addition, supermarkets now operate from 8am to 3pm. But air travel and essential land transportation across borders for trucks continue under the new measures announced by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who is also the country’s Health minister.
-dailynews
The arrest of Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, Job Sikhala and Hopewell Chin’ono represents a chilling attack on freedom of expression by the State.
That the three have been charged under a law that was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2014 makes the violation of then rights to free speech even more pernicious.
The words of Chief Justice Malaba are worth repeating: “Government is prohibited from appointing itself as a monitor of truth for people.”
Muzzling those who call for state accountability is a cynical abuse of power. What should have received urgent attention from the State are allegations of police brutality.
The State has a duty of care to its citizens, and when there’s an incident that leads to speculation about possible police brutality, the State should reassure the public that it will investigate and hold any offender accountable, as was the case with the video of the woman seen cradling her child.
Zimbabwe’s constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression and the State must curtail its assault of this right. Over the past six months, Hopewell Chin’ono has been in and out of the courts and Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on charges relating to his work as a journalist.
An attack on Chin’ono’s rights to freedom of expression limits the rights of citizens to know what is going on in the country. The response of the state should be to set the record straight, not to arrest or harass those who express themselves freely.
It is the responsibility of the State to ensure the safety of its citizens, and to guarantee the comfort and security of those it incarcerates. Images of Chin’ono and others in leg irons is meant to intimidate those who dare ask uncomfortable questions of the State.
Issued by Trevor Ncube 14/01/2021 Harare
By A Correspondent- The South Africa National Defence Force (SANDF) has started deploying helicopters to patrol over the Limpopo River and 108 people using illegal crossing points have since been nabbed.
The air patrols follow this week’s decision by the South African government to close its borders, including Beitbridge Border Post.
A recent report by the International Organisation Migration concluded that there would be a spike in Covid-19 cases in both countries due to illegal activities at the border.
The SANDF said Wednesday 108 undocumented persons had been nabbed and goods worth R200 000 had been recovered following air operations it conducted. It also said illicit cigarettes worth R 466 107 had been seized.
Early this month, South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the SANDF will be deploying helicopters to hover above the Limpopo River and the SAPS will have boats in it.
The minister said this after inspecting the Beitbridge border, where he saw dozens of Zimbabweans trying to make their way illegally into South Africa.
“You can’t just come with your fraudulent documents. The person who wants to enter your country with a fraudulent document is undermining your sovereignty, is undermining the order in your country, is undermining al the laws,” the minister said.
-wires
By A Correspondent- Two Shamva men were dragged to Bindura Magistrates Courts yesterday for possessing fishing nets without a license.
Trust Chabvundura (42) and Tatenda Foya (25) of Tippery, Shamva, pleaded guilty to the charge before Magistrate Samantha Dlamini who fined them ZW$2 000 each or 30 days imprisonment.
Prosecutor Edward Katsvairo told the court that on January 12 at around 0500hrs, the accused persons proceeded to Daglin Dam with two nets intending to fish.
Takaruza Changanamu who is a security guard at Daglin farm, discovered the accused and intercepted them.
Changanamu asked for a license from the accused which they failed to produce, and they were arrested.
The nets were forfeited to the State.
Tinashe Sambiri|A trigger-happy prison officer attempted to shoot freelance journalist Frank Chikowore in Harare on Thursday morning as MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala and Hopewell Chin’ono arrived at court.
Chikowore was doing his duty as usual when prison officers threatened to assault him.One officer then pointed a fully loaded firearm at Chikowore and threatened to shoot him.
The MDC Alliance has described the incident as shocking:
“This is how journalists are treated by Zimbabwe Prisons & Correctional Service in Zimbabwe.
Freelance journalist Frank Chikowore was saved from being shot by a prison officer today at Harare Magistrates Court while recording a video as @daddyhope & Hon. Sikhala arrived at court,” the party said in a brief statement.
MDC Alliance Namibia spokesperson Robson Ruhanya said:
“The country is being run by callous individuals who do not value human rights.They are ready to spill blood anytime…”
A KARIBA fisherman died on Wednesday morning after being attacked by a crocodile while fishing at Lomagundi Lakeside in Lake Kariba.
The man had seemingly been saved from the jaws of death by unlikely saviours, hippos, after being snapped by a huge crocodile while fishing knee-deep in the waters of Lake Kariba.
However, he died several minutes after being retrieved. He had sustained a deep gush on the hand which was nearly severed from the body and a wound to the rib cage.
His body was taken to Kariba District Hospital mortuary.-The Herald
ON 8 January 2021, Zimbabwean police arrested award-winning journalist Hopewell Chin’ono at his home in Harare for allegedly publishing a falsehood or communicating false information which is prejudicial to the state.
After that police also arrested opposition leaders Job Sikhala and Fadzayi Mahere on the same charges.
This emanated from a widely circulated video on social media in which a police officer is seen quarrelling amid pushing and shoving with a group of people accusing him of striking and killing a baby with a baton.
The mother of the baby is also seen grabbing the policeman, with people saying the police officer had killed the child.
However, police say they later investigated and found out that the scuffle had indeed happened after the police officer had shattered a windscreen of a Kombi with the baton, resulting in the baby being hit by debris, but eventually the child did not die as initially feared by the mother and the crowd, and as later widely circulated by Chin’ono and others.
As a result, Chin’ono was arrested and is being charged under Section 31 (a)(iii) of the Criminal (Codification and Reform) Act. This part of the law has since been repealed; it no longer exists.
A Constitutional Court judgment exists in the case of Constantine Chimakure and others (CCZ6 of 2014), ruling that the offence Chin’ono is currently facing is non-existent as it was struck off in 2014 as unconstitutional anyway.
This clearly means Chin’ono’s arrest is arbitrary and has no foundation at law.
Constitutionally and legally, he cannot be convicted on a law that does not exist and on something which is not an offence at law.
This means the police’s case against Chin’ono has no legal basis at all, not just because the law was repealed as it was unconstitutional, but also because the state – as the Constitutional Court ruled – cannot appoint itself and arrogate itself powers of being a monitor of truth.
That is not the function of the state. A state cannot and should not behave like an unruly class monitor – or bully-harassing journalists and citizens, prescribing to them what is true out there and what is not.
While freedom of expression and media freedom are not absolute – in other words they have limits – those fetters are clearly defined and articulated in the constitution and the law.
The grounds upon which freedom of expression and media freedom are legally restricted are spelt out clearly and unambiguously in the constitution.
This is because freedom of expression and media freedom are fundamental and critical, hence entrenched rights, and a cornerstone to the building of a free and democratic society, which Zimbabwe aspires to be.
Strong constitutional protection of freedom of expression and press freedom cannot tolerate the imposition of self-censorship on free speech and press through fear of arrests or lengthy sentences of imprisonment for offences of publishing or communicating false news, as the court ruled.
In 2000 the UN Special Rapporteur commented on false news arrests and issues saying: “In the case of offences such as publishing or broadcasting ‘false’ or ‘alarmist’ information, arrests and prison terms are both reprehensible and out of proportion to the harm suffered by the victim.” This is simply because a free press is the lifeblood of any democracy.
Journalists, of course, must always verify their stories first – in other words, uphold the ethics, values and principles of the profession- and check information before publishing, but this cannot be a pretext for police to arrest journalists arbitrarily and outside the law.
Journalism is basically a science of verification, yet arbitrary arrests are not the solution if and when journalists fail in their responsibilities and duties.
We urge law enforcement agents to do their job professionally and within the limits of the law, not to act arbitrarily, in as much as we urge journalists to be professional.
By arresting Chin’ono and other journalists arbitrarily, the Zimbabwean state will be contravening not just its own constitution, but also the African Charter for Human Rights, in particular Article 6 and Article 14, which Zimbabwe signed and ratified.
This means SADC and the African Union should always speak out against such violations of freedom of expression and press freedom.
We, therefore, note with dismay SADC and the AU’s silence at this gross violation of freedom of expression, press freedom and indeed human rights.
We further note that this is not the first time this has happened in Zimbabwe. Journalists have routinely been arrested and intimidated in Zimbabwe – for years.
It is not the first time Chin’ono himself has been arrested. It’s the third time in as many months.
By arresting and harassing journalists, the government is not only inflicting pain on the media practitioner concerned and sending a chilling effect across the media landscape but also damaging its own image irreparably in the process.
There is nothing to be achieved and gained by arresting journalists and indeed citizens in general, except damaging government’s reputation and making Zimbabwe appear like an authoritarian, rogue state.
Together, we can make Zimbabwe a safe place for journalists to work in and a better nation for all to live in.
ZINEF chairperson,
Dumisani Muleya.
By A Correspondent- Eight more suspects in a US$2.5 million money heist were on Wednesday brought to court movie style.
Police used high security vehicles in a motorcade to bring the suspects to court.
Of the eight, five appeared in court and were placed on remand, while the others are assisting police with investigations.
The five who were placed on remand are Gerald Rutizirira 35, Kelvin Musakwa, 25, Tendai Zuze, 35, Neverson Mwamuka, 35 and Trymore Chapfika, 36 and they were not asked to plead when they appeared before Harare magistrate Judith Taruvinga, who referred them to the High Court for bail considerations.
The court heard that on January 6, the five, together with Fanuel Masakwa and Shadreck Njowa, who are ZB Bank employees planned to rob the bank of cash that was in transit to be distributed to its branches across the country.
It is alleged that they conspired with several others who are still at large and armed themselves with guns, arranged three getaway vehicles and planned that three would be picked up as passengers while being accomplices to the heist.
Masakwa was in the ZB Bank cash in transit vehicle, a white Toyota Hilux with a canopy and would frequently contact his accomplices on their way from Harare to Chinhoyi and along the way they deposited $43 090 at Inkomo Tollgate with the bank and as they drove towards Chinhoyi, the driver picked up three ‘passengers’ on Masakwa’s instruction.
It is reported that when they reached the 60km peg, one of the ‘passengers’, pretended as if he had reached his destination and the driver stopped the car to let him disembark.
That is when the passenger produced a gun threatening to shoot the crew. Other accomplices arrived immediately driving a red twin cab belonging to Rutizirira, a Toyota Passo and a Toyota Lexus, armed with unidentified pistols and fired two shots in the air then bundled the crew members before speeding away with seven boxes of the money, leaving them at the scene.
The State alleges that Rutizirira led to the discovery of US$96 100, which remained of his share as well as a Toyota Hilux he bought soon after the offence and he also led the police to recover the red getaway car he had painted white.
Musakwa reportedly led to the recovery of US$48 000 which he obtained as Musakwa’s proceeds of the crime, while Zuze led to the discovery of US$35 082, which he remained with from his loot after buying a Toyota Baby Quantum. Mwamuka led to the recovery of US$74 884, which he remained with from his share and a Honda Fit he had bought with some of his money and the Lexus used in the robbery, while Chapfika led to the recovery of US$38 900.
Linda Gadzikwa appeared for the State
Tanzanian Premier League sides Azam and Simba SC are battling for the signature of FC Platinum striker Perfect Chikwende, it has ermeged.
The former Bulawayo Chiefs man scored the only goal of the game when Pure Platinum Play edged Simba SC in the Champions League second round first leg at the National Sports Stadium, even though the Zimbabwean champions went on to lose the tie 1-4.
The performance he put on during that game is said to have impressed Simba, though Azam are said to be also interested in him.
Platinum spokesperson Chido Chizondo confirmed that the two sides are after the player.
“It’s not yet confirmed which club he is heading to, but for now, we can confirm that he is set leave for Tanzania. Simba have placed their offer, while Azam are also interested. So at this stage, we are waiting to hear the results when he goes there,” she was quoted as saying by NewsDay.
National team coach Zdravko Logarusic has reportedly appointed Chicken Inn right back Ian Nekati as the captain for the CHAN finals.
The Warriors left for Yaounde yesterday and are expected to arrive there this morning.
Logarusic had kept his cards close to his chest as far as disclosing the captain for the tournament is concerned but according to The Herald, its Nekati, who will be deputised by Dynamos defender Partson Jaure.
Zimbabwe kick-start the tournament agsisnt hosts Cameroon on Saturday.-Soccer 24 Zimbabwe
All you need to know about Mudimu’s new team Ankarapor FC
Warriors star Alec Mudimu is now on the ranks of Turkish side Ankarapor FC.
The 25-year-old versatile defender made the move from Moldovan side Sheriff Tiraspol.
Ankarapor are from the Turkish capital Ankara and play in the country’s second tier division the TFF 1.
The team’s technical team is headed by Ukrainian coach Yuriy Vernydub, who was recently appointed.
Ankarapor play their home games at the 18 000 seater Ottoman Stadium and are currently 17th on the table.-Soccer 24 Zimbabwe
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance spokesperson, Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, has revealed that the regime is deliberately exposing opposition members to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
Mahere has been subjected to degrading treatment while in custody and potentially exposed to Covid-19.
“There were no temperature checks or sanitisers at the police entrance.
No social distancing is observed in the waiting area or holding cells. No masks are available in the cells and cellmates had old masks.
The toilet was a pit latrine surrounded by a puddle of urine. There is no separation between the beds and toilet walls as well as privacy during menstruation.
A pungent smell exists because of lack of aeration. The cell blocks are small and seven inmates were crowded in each room. You have to walk barefooted and women take off their undergarments,” Mahere complained through her lawyer, David Drury.
Kaitano Tembo’s SuperSport United continued with their impressive run in the DStv Premiership after beating Bloemfontein Celtic 2-1 today.
The Zimbabwean tactician has led the Pretoria-based side to five wins out of their last six league games.
Goals from Bradley Grobbler and Thamsanqa Gabuza ensured that Matsatsantsa go second on the table, two points adrift of log leaders and defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns.
Interestingly, up next forSuperSport is a top of the table Tswane derby against Masandawana.- Soccer 24 Zimbabwe
By A Correspondent- Harare South district youth leader, Gerald Rutizirira, (35), was this week arrested for his involvement in the infamous US$2.5 million cash-in-transit robbery that happened in Gwebi last week.
Rutizirira, a land baron famed for his political activism in Harare South, is part of the eight-member gang which allegedly worked in cahoots with three ZB Bank cash-in-transit security personnel namely Nomatter Jonga, Matthew Simango and Fanuel Musakwa.
Zim Morning Post reports that upon his arrest, Rutizirira was found in possession of USS$ 96 100 and he had also bought a recently imported Toyota Hiace Omnibus which costs a minimum of US$10 000 on the market. Speaking to Zim Morning Post, a source that emphasised anonymity said:
Gerald is one of the cool land barons here. He was quiet and sold his stands in Ushewekunze area.
He always had challenges with double allocating stands but he was decent and I am shocked with his arrest.
The only time I remember when he had a near-violent confrontation was when he tried to overlap his land deals into Southlands.
A chief baron there called Bigman came here and made noise.
According to the police investigation officer identified only as Inspector Chipwazo, Rutizirira’s red Toyota Hilux double cab was used as the getaway car to transport the loot. Chipwazo said:
They loaded the cash in a red Toyota Hilux double cab which drove off with some of the accomplices.
It is further alleged that Rutizirira tried to conceal the crime by changing the colour of the getaway car to white but upon his arrest, the paint was still wet.
State, led by Linda Gahadzikwa opposed bail for the accused on grounds that the accused posed a flight risk and were likely to interfere with investigations.
Five of the accused were remanded in custody to February 17, while the other three were sent back for further detention.
-ZimMorningPost
Four people escaped death by a whisker after the plane they were in crash-landed on Wednesday morning in the Luunga area in Binga.
The Herald reports that the single-engine Cessna plane, registration number ZSIZG a C210, which is believed to have left Kariba Airport on Wednesday morning ceased mid-air at Chibuyu in the Luunga area of Binga under chief Sinakatenge about 180km from Binga.
The plane was headed for Sijarira Forests on the South Western shores of Lake Kariba when it crash-landed.
Sijarira Forests are a hit with wilderness loving tourists as they offer game viewing, fishing and swimming opportunities.
The four were rescued and transported to a camp in Sengwa for first aid before they were ferried by a boat to Rhino Camp and later transferred to a health facility in Kariba.
The most common symptoms of Covid-19 are: fever, dry cough and fatigue.
Other symptoms that are less common and may affect some patients include: loss of taste or smell; nasal congestion; conjunctivitis (also known as red eyes); sore throat; headache; muscle or joint pain; different types of skin rash; nausea or vomiting; diarrhoea; chills or dizziness. Symptoms of severe Covid-19 disease include: shortness of breath; loss of appetite; confusion; persistent pain or pressure in the chest; and high temperature (above 38 °C). More severe and rare neurological complications such as strokes, brain inflammation, delirium and nerve damage.
People of all ages who experience fever and/or cough associated with difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure, or loss of speech or movement should seek medical care immediately.
If possible, call your health care provider, hotline (in Zimbabwe the number is 2019) or health facility first, so you can be directed to the right clinic.
What should I do if I have Covid-19 symptoms?
If you have any symptoms suggestive of Covid-19, call your health care provider or Covid-19 hotline for instructions and find out when and where to get a test, stay at home for 14 days away from others and monitor your health. If you have shortness of breath or pain or pressure in the chest, seek medical attention at a health facility immediately.
Call your health care provider or hotline in advance for direction to the right health facility. If you live in an area with malaria or dengue fever, seek medical care if you have a fever. If local guidance recommends visiting a medical centre for testing, assessment or isolation, wear a medical mask while travelling to and from the facility and during medical care.
Also keep at least a one-metre distance from other people and avoid touching surfaces with your hands.
This applies to adults and children.
Are antibiotics effective in preventing or treating Covid-19?
Antibiotics do not work against viruses; they only work on bacterial infections. Covid-19 is caused by a virus, so antibiotics do not work. Antibiotics should not be used as a means of prevention or treatment of Covid-19. In hospitals, physicians will sometimes use antibiotics to prevent or treat secondary bacterial infections which can be a complication of Covid-19 in severely ill patients. They should only be used as directed by a physician to treat a bacterial infection.
Precautionary measures
Stay safe by taking some simple precautions, such as physical distancing, wearing a mask, especially when distancing cannot be maintained, keeping rooms well ventilated, avoiding crowds and close contact, regularly cleaning your hands, and coughing into a bent elbow or tissue — www.who.int
Credit:WHO
Inserted by Zimbabwe Online Health Centre
For more information follow /like our Facebook page :Zimbabwe Online Health Centre
email :[email protected]
Twitter :zimonlinehealthcentre
@zimonlinehealt1
YouTube: zimbabwe online health centre
Website:www.zimonlinehealthcentre.co.zw
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance official, Happymore ‘Bvondo’ Chidziva has called for national solidarity in the fighting against Zanu PF oppression.
Chidziva denounced the persecution of MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala, party spokesperson Advocate Fadzayi Mahere and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono.
In a strong message to the Zanu PF administration, Chidziva said:
They want to silence you the People’s spokes.
Let the regime be warned this year is a different year, tanyarara zvakwana they must arrest us all.
We can’t continue watching as if these are people shooting movies lets put a stop to this …
Both the regime and us must see to it kuti for us all to be proud of Zimbabwe this must end either through action or realisation. We can’t be a country that is known just for political persecution.
Tinashe Sambiri|A trigger-happy prison officer attempted to shoot freelance journalist Frank Chikowore in Harare on Thursday morning as MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala and Hopewell Chin’ono arrived at court.
Chikowore was doing his duty as usual when prison officers threatened to assault him.One officer then pointed a fully loaded firearm at Chikowore and threatened to shoot him.
The MDC Alliance has described the incident as shocking:
“This is how journalists are treated by Zimbabwe Prisons & Correctional Service in Zimbabwe.
Freelance journalist Frank Chikowore was saved from being shot by a prison officer today at Harare Magistrates Court while recording a video as @daddyhope & Hon. Sikhala arrived at court,” the party said in a brief statement.
MDC Alliance Namibia spokesperson Robson Ruhanya said:
“The country is being run by callous individuals who do not value human rights.They are ready to spill blood anytime…”
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance Youth Assembly leader, Netsai Marova has posted a strong message on Facebook encouraging Advocate Fadzayi Mahere to remain strong and resilient…
Mahere, MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono were arrested for allegedly communicating falsehoods.
Netsai, Joana Mamombe and Cecilia Chimbiri are victims of State brutality- last year they were abducted, tortured and assaulted for speaking on behalf of suffering Zimbabweans.
“Tears and sweat of the courageous are the only raindrops that precede the sushine to freedom for all.
The cock shall crow, heralding the begining of a new day. Hang in the people’s spokes Fadzayi Mahere. This too shall come to pass.
The most common symptoms of Covid-19 are: fever, dry cough and fatigue.
Other symptoms that are less common and may affect some patients include: loss of taste or smell; nasal congestion; conjunctivitis (also known as red eyes); sore throat; headache; muscle or joint pain; different types of skin rash; nausea or vomiting; diarrhoea; chills or dizziness. Symptoms of severe Covid-19 disease include: shortness of breath; loss of appetite; confusion; persistent pain or pressure in the chest; and high temperature (above 38 °C). More severe and rare neurological complications such as strokes, brain inflammation, delirium and nerve damage.
People of all ages who experience fever and/or cough associated with difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure, or loss of speech or movement should seek medical care immediately.
If possible, call your health care provider, hotline (in Zimbabwe the number is 2019) or health facility first, so you can be directed to the right clinic.
What should I do if I have Covid-19 symptoms?
If you have any symptoms suggestive of Covid-19, call your health care provider or Covid-19 hotline for instructions and find out when and where to get a test, stay at home for 14 days away from others and monitor your health. If you have shortness of breath or pain or pressure in the chest, seek medical attention at a health facility immediately.
Call your health care provider or hotline in advance for direction to the right health facility. If you live in an area with malaria or dengue fever, seek medical care if you have a fever. If local guidance recommends visiting a medical centre for testing, assessment or isolation, wear a medical mask while travelling to and from the facility and during medical care.
Also keep at least a one-metre distance from other people and avoid touching surfaces with your hands.
This applies to adults and children.
Are antibiotics effective in preventing or treating Covid-19?
Antibiotics do not work against viruses; they only work on bacterial infections. Covid-19 is caused by a virus, so antibiotics do not work. Antibiotics should not be used as a means of prevention or treatment of Covid-19. In hospitals, physicians will sometimes use antibiotics to prevent or treat secondary bacterial infections which can be a complication of Covid-19 in severely ill patients. They should only be used as directed by a physician to treat a bacterial infection.
Precautionary measures
Stay safe by taking some simple precautions, such as physical distancing, wearing a mask, especially when distancing cannot be maintained, keeping rooms well ventilated, avoiding crowds and close contact, regularly cleaning your hands, and coughing into a bent elbow or tissue — www.who.int
Credit:WHO
Inserted by Zimbabwe Online Health Centre
For more information follow /like our Facebook page :Zimbabwe Online Health Centre
email :[email protected]
Twitter :zimonlinehealthcentre
@zimonlinehealt1
YouTube: zimbabwe online health centre
Website:www.zimonlinehealthcentre.co.zw
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance official, Happymore ‘Bvondo’ Chidziva has called for national solidarity in the fighting against Zanu PF oppression.
Chidziva denounced the persecution of MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala, party spokesperson Advocate Fadzayi Mahere and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono.
In a strong message to the Zanu PF administration, Chidziva said:
They want to silence you the People’s spokes.
Let the regime be warned this year is a different year, tanyarara zvakwana they must arrest us all.
We can’t continue watching as if these are people shooting movies lets put a stop to this …
Both the regime and us must see to it kuti for us all to be proud of Zimbabwe this must end either through action or realisation. We can’t be a country that is known just for political persecution.
Tinashe Sambiri|A trigger-happy prison officer attempted to shoot freelance journalist Frank Chikowore in Harare on Thursday morning as MDC Alliance vice chairperson Hon Job Sikhala and Hopewell Chin’ono arrived at court.
Chikowore was doing his duty as usual when prison officers threatened to assault him.One officer then pointed a fully loaded firearm at Chikowore and threatened to shoot him.
The MDC Alliance has described the incident as shocking:
“This is how journalists are treated by Zimbabwe Prisons & Correctional Service in Zimbabwe.
Freelance journalist Frank Chikowore was saved from being shot by a prison officer today at Harare Magistrates Court while recording a video as @daddyhope & Hon. Sikhala arrived at court,” the party said in a brief statement.
MDC Alliance Namibia spokesperson Robson Ruhanya said:
“The country is being run by callous individuals who do not value human rights.They are ready to spill blood anytime…”
By Son Of The Soil
Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Presidency is under threat as factional battles intensify in Zanu PF.
Party youths who declined to be named believe Saviour Kasukuwere is a better leader than Mnangagwa.
“It’s now 3 years after elections and Mnangagwa has failed to fulfil his promises.Mnangagwa hates democracy…
He only cares about his pocket and power. His 2030 vision is a joke. Mugabe had the 2020 vision and I think it was better than Mnangagwa’s so called vision.
Saviour Kasukuwere is the one who can rebuild the party, he is better than Mnangagwa.
We are sick and tired of Mnangagwa’s brutality.He is persecuting opposition members at will,” said one Zanu PF youth.
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance spokesperson, Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, has revealed that the regime is deliberately exposing opposition members to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
Mahere has been subjected to degrading treatment while in custody and potentially exposed to Covid-19.
“There were no temperature checks or sanitisers at the police entrance.
No social distancing is observed in the waiting area or holding cells. No masks are available in the cells and cellmates had old masks.
The toilet was a pit latrine surrounded by a puddle of urine. There is no separation between the beds and toilet walls as well as privacy during menstruation.
A pungent smell exists because of lack of aeration. The cell blocks are small and seven inmates were crowded in each room. You have to walk barefooted and women take off their undergarments,” Mahere complained through her lawyer, David Drury.
Four people aboard a single-engine Cessna plane are lucky to be alive after it crash landed in the Luunga area of Binga yesterday morning.
The engine of the plane, registration number ZSIZG a C210, which is believed to have left Kariba Airport on Wednesday morning ceased mid-air at Chibuyu in the Luunga area of Binga under chief Sinakatenge about 180km from Binga.
The plane was headed for Sijarira Forests on the South Western shores of Lake Kariba. Sijarira Forests are a hit with wilderness loving tourists as they offer game viewing, fishing and swimming opportunities.
They were rescued and transported to a camp in Sengwa for first aid before they were ferried by a boat to Rhino Camp and later transferred to a health facility in Kariba.
-State Media
By A Correspondent| Harare regional magistrate Lazini Ncube has denied journalist Hopewell Chin’ono bail.
In his ruling, Ncube stated that there was overwhelming evidence against Chin’ono as the child he alleged to have died from a police baton stick attack is still alive.
Ncube also stated that Chin’ono committed the current offence while on bail for other pending matters before the courts.
He was remanded in custody to 18 February for routine remand.
By A Correspondent- The government will soon deploy doctors to join the security services at roadblocks to screen motorists for COVID-19 in a move meant to flatten the curve.
The healthcare workers will also be mandated to advise security personnel to prevent from entering the city centre, those suspected to be infected with the coronavirus.
This was said by the vice-chairman of the Ad-Hoc Inter-Ministerial Taskforce on COVID-19, Amon Murwira, at a media briefing in Harare yesterday.
Said Murwira:
We have agreed that law enforcement should be combined with awareness and also screening. There will be some points where we will actually send doctors to screen people in a car to find out if people are clean and clear in terms of the disease, not only papers.
The papers do not tell whether you have COVID-19 or not, so we are increasing and tightening up the functions of our blocks. This is all in the spirit of protecting Zimbabweans.
Meanwhile, Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Deputy Minister, Mike Madiro bemoaned the tendency by some motorists to circumvent security checkpoints to access the central business district.
Madiro said the police have taken measures to ensure that the central business district is completely sealed so that those trying to use unorthodox means are taken care of.
By A Correspondent – Power cuts being experienced in some parts of the country are not a result of load shedding but by the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority’s (ZESA) lack of capacity to deal with numerous faults induced by incessant rains.
Energy and Power Development Minister Zhemu Soda on Wednesday said the country was generating enough power and blamed power cuts on the common rainy season faults.
Falling poles, trees falling on overhead cables, water seeping into underground cables and lightning striking critical equipment are some of the reasons behind current power blackouts.
The extra work needed for fixing these faults has caused delays in some repairs and some areas have gone for days without electricity.
In Harare, areas seeing faults in the last few days include Warren Park, Kuwadzana, Mufakose, Good Hope, Cold Comfort, Tynwald, parts of Greendale, Strathaven and Marlborough.
Some of the affected have gone for more than five days without power, although some faults were fixed within one or two days.
Outside Harare, falling pylons near Glendale have seen a chunk of that farming area go dark.
The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), a subsidiary of ZESA Holdings, in its own statement said that during rainy seasons, there was a higher prevalence of electrical faults.
By A Correspondent- Three Harare-based Zimbabwe Republic (ZRP) officers were on Wednesday hurled before a Harare magistrate on allegations of mounting an illegal roadblock in the city centre and demanding a bribe from a motorist.
Norest Nyasha Chikore, Osivinda Maphosa and Prisca Nyadongo appeared before magistrate Judith Taruvinga on a charge of criminal abuse of duty.
The trio was not asked to plead and was, however, remanded on $2 000 bail each.
Prosecutors said the accused persons mounted an unsanctioned roadblock at corner Leopold Takawira Street and Nelson Mandela Avenue pretending to be enforcing traffic laws.
They then arrested a motorist, Anthony Hwingwiri, and demanded US$30 bribe.
The whole incident was being watched by officers from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) who promptly arrested the three police officers.
-newsday
Seven people, masquerading as Zimparks employees have been arrested while attempting to sell fake Rhino horns.
They were arrested yesterday (Wednesday) in Gokwe, a district in Zimbabwe’s Midlands province.
Zimparks spokesperson Tinashe Farawo confirmed the arrest today on twitter.
Farawo could not immediately give the names of the suspects.
He said, “They are expected to appear in court soon. Zimparks managed to recover fake Zimparks ID cards.”
-State Media
Three Harare-based Zimbabwe Republic (ZRP) officers were on Wednesday hauled before a Harare magistrate on allegations of mounting an illegal roadblock in the city centre and demanding a bribe from a motorist.
Norest Nyasha Chikore, Osivinda Maphosa and Prisca Nyadongo appeared before magistrate Judith Taruvinga on a charge of criminal abuse of duty.
The trio was not asked to plead and was, however, remanded on $2 000 bail each.
Prosecutors said the accused persons mounted an unsanctioned roadblock at corner Leopold Takawira Street and Nelson Mandela Avenue pretending to be enforcing traffic laws.
They then arrested a motorist, Anthony Hwingwiri, and demanded US$30 bribe.
The whole incident was being watched by officers from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) who promptly arrested the three police officers.
-Newsday
After announcing that he was dumping MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa arguing that his party no longer exists, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti has been accused of trying to trace his footsteps back to the ruling Zanu-PF party but the former Mwenezi East legislator has hit back at his critics saying he never resigned from Zanu-PF.
Bhasikiti was kicked out of Zanu-PF in 2014 on allegations of trying to remove the then President Robert Mugabe from power together with the Gamatox faction led by former vice president Joyce Mujuru.
Bhasikiti told TellZim News that people should understand that he never resigned from Zanu-PF but he did from the MDC Alliance.
“I was not kicked out of the MDC Alliance but I had to quit after realising that I could no longer belong to a party which does not exist. I supported Chamisa but since he no longer has a party, I decided to leave him.
“Now people are attacking my person saying I want to go back to Zanu-PF but I want to tell them that I never resigned from Zanu-PF.
“Everyone likes the old Zanu-PF which believed in the politics of gutsaruzhinji. Unfortunately, the current Zanu-PF has derailed from that principle and if they mend their ways I would support them.
“What I wanted was for MDC Alliance to become ideologically like Zanu-PF during its founding days but they have refused,” said Bhasikiti.
He said he was quitting politics and will focus on agriculture at his farm in Mwenezi where he says he is doing very well in maize seed and mango production.
“I am now doing politics of production. The people need to eat at the end of the day and I have decided to take it upon myself to feed the nation.
“We are now looking beyond politics and we want to utilize the land we were given. I am into maize seed and mango production. Our mangoes are being sold on the local market and we have exported some,” said Bhasikiti.
After the 2017 military coup of 2017 which downed Mugabe, Bhasikiti tried to find his way into Zanu-PF after pleading with the Zanu-PF Masvingo Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) for readmission but he was turned down.
-TellZim
Partisian help of people who have been affected by Cyclone has started by Zanu pf members in Mutare, dream house disaster.
Politics is now at play as Zanu members such as Moyo and Mrs Mpofu were given the task to write down the effected members.
Shockingly, they’re writing and giving Zanu Pf members leaving some MDC member s who were also affected.
From the begining, giving Zanu pf ward and Constitutional mandate to write down names of the affected victims is uncostitional and not accepted.
The truth is help is coming from Plan International and Welfare but Zanu pf is grabbing this opportunity to politicize the whole process.
Now they are distributing food to Zanu pf members only leaving MDC affiliated members. Plan International and welfare help is now said it’s from Esau Mupfumi, who is a Zanu pf candidate.
Through this, it’s clear that Zanu pf is stealing from the people.
It’s unfortunate that Zanu pf government is taking the advantage of both lockdown and floods to manipulate and frog march people into bowing down to it.
If the government wanted to be fair enough, it was supposed to allow the recalled Ward Councillor and Constituency MP to also assess the situation and help the affected people.
The government must not take advantages of these disasters to put its candidates at limelight yet they have already failed.
Fanuel Chinowaita
Human Rights Defender and The Watchdog of the Community*
National team coach Zdravko Logarusic has reportedly appointed Chicken Inn right back Ian Nekati as the captain for the CHAN finals.
The Warriors left for Yaounde yesterday and are expected to arrive there this morning.
Logarusic had kept his cards close to his chest as far as disclosing the captain for the tournament is concerned but according to The Herald, its Nekati, who will be deputised by Dynamos defender Partson Jaure.
Zimbabwe kick-start the tournament against hosts Cameroon on Saturday.
-Soccer24
SUSPENSION OF THE OPERATION OF INTERNET GATEWAYS
In exercise or its functions under sections 5(1► and of the Uganda Communications Act of 2013, Uganda Communications Commission hereby directs you to implement a temporary suspension of the operation of all your Internet Gateways and associated access points. This suspension should take effect at 7pm this day of 13th January 2021 and continue until otherwise directed.
Thank you for your cooperation
The CORONA VIRUS pandemic has shaken the world and gripped it with fear. In the last 24 hours I lost people very close to me due to COVID. there is no one who can say he does not know a family which lost a loved one to COVID. The major problem of COVID is that it will wipe out half of our population if it is not dealt with now.
The only way we know how is the only way we have to use. The hygienic demands placed on us are not hard to follow but they have proven to be very effective. We have seen those who have been diagnosed of COVID before are again attacked by the second strain of COVID 19.
The only hope the world holds is the Vaccine. Scientists world over rushed to their labs and came up with a vaccine. Now many countries are rolling out millions of doses for the people to have a chance to live again.
Unfortunately people are now overwhelmed to the extent of being confused by showers of anti vaccine messages. We have thousands of audios and texts which are meant to scare many people away from the Vaccine. The sad thing is the world has kept silent as people are being bombarded by such trash. Cooked up and sexed up videos are being spread.
Many are the ones who say the COVID is the end of the world. God himself spoke in Genesis 9:11 “I will establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the water of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to destroy and ruin the earth.”. But in Zephaniah 3:8 God said
“Therefore wait for me,” declares the Lord, “for the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed.”
The world will be destroyed by fire and this will be a lesson for another day. So COVID will not destroy the earth but people will die and many more will die.
In Oder to rescue humankind the scientists have come up with a Vaccine which is meant to save protect help and heal. It is not a secret that. CORONA virus needs vaccination. Over the years, vaccines have prevented countless cases of disease and disability, and have saved millions of lives. For example, polio, which caused approximately 50,000 cases each year in the U.S., was one of the most dreaded childhood diseases of the 20th century with annual epidemics.
But, through successful vaccination programs around the world, polio is almost gone from the world. The CDC estimates that vaccination of children born between 1994 and 2018 in the U.S. will prevent 419 million illnesses, help avoid 936,000 deaths, and save nearly $1.9 trillion in total societal costs (that includes $406 billion in direct costs). This spread to our country we will serve billions by vaccinating people.
Vaccination is a highly effective, easy way to keep your family and yourself safe. Vaccines are tested to ensure that they are safe and effective for children and humankind to receive at the doses.
Vaccination is the most important thing we can do to protect ourselves and our children against ill health. They prevent up to 3 million deaths worldwide every year.Since vaccines were introduced in the UK, diseases like smallpox, polio and tetanus that used to kill or disable millions of people are either gone or seen very rarely. It is on that background that the scientists found it prudent to create a vaccine in this period of COVID.
Other diseases like measles and diphtheria have been reduced by up to 99.9% since their vaccines were introduced. However, if people stop having vaccines, it’s possible for infectious diseases to quickly spread again.
Unfortunately, too often, our we learns of people who suffer from illness and disability from infectious, yet preventable diseases, or of families who mourn the devastating loss of loved ones from an illness that could have been prevented through vaccines. I have lost dear friends sisters and very important people to COVID. If only the vaccine was rolled out faster we would have been saying a different story.
Vaccines Protect Individuals, Families and Communities
People must always remember that when you get vaccinated, you’re not only protecting yourself, but you are also protecting your family and your community from contagious and dangerous diseases? If we have high vaccination rates in every community, we are able to keep diseases from spreading throughout the world. We have a Moral and legitimate duty to be vaccinated and forget all the inflammatory statements peddled by the losers all over the social media.
None Vaccinating of preventable diseases can be very costly resulting in doctor’s visits, hospitalizations, and premature deaths. Additionally, national, state and local outbreak responses also take a lot of time, money and manpower. Through timely vaccinations, it saves billions of dollars.
Vaccines teach your immune system how to create antibodies that protect you from diseases. It’s much safer for your immune system to learn this through vaccination than by catching the diseases and treating them.
Once your immune system knows how to fight a disease, it can often protect you for many years. Having a vaccine also benefits your whole community through “herd immunity”.
If enough people are vaccinated, it’s harder for the disease to spread to those people who cannot have vaccines. So accepting vaccine is a healing and preventive measure.
People must not be misled by unsubstantiated messages on social media.
All vaccines are thoroughly tested to make sure they will not harm you or your child or your family.
It often takes many years for a vaccine to make it through the trials and tests it needs to pass for approval.Once a vaccine is being used in the it’s also monitored for any rare side effects.
Anyone can report a suspected side effect of vaccination to the doctors. In United Kingdom there is a Yellow card scheme which is mandated to flag any side effect caused by vaccination.
Most of the side effects of vaccination are mild and do not last long.It’s rare for anyone to have a serious allergic reaction to a vaccination. If this does happen, it usually happens within minutes.
The person who vaccinates you will be trained to deal with allergic reactions and treat them immediately. With prompt treatment, you will make a good recovery.
People are being scared to death by being killed through vaccination and yet they get courage to die from the pandemic. If fear drives you to your own death so why afraid to take the vaccine and die trying to survive than die doing nothing. People are worried because of theories they are getting from the social media.
Most people are not concerned about vaccine ingredients and know that they are safe.
The main ingredient of any vaccine is a small amount of bacteria, virus or toxin that’s been weakened or destroyed in a laboratory first.
This means there’s no risk of healthy people catching a disease from a vaccine. It’s also why you might see vaccines being called “live” or “killed” vaccines.
Vaccines sometimes contain other ingredients that make the vaccine safe and more effective.
There is no evidence that any of these ingredients cause harm when used in such small amounts.
So for people to continue sending audios and videos which clearly seek to undermine the efforts of health authorities is murder.
It is high time authorities must arrest those people who are peddling falsehoods about about the vaccine and about CORONA itself. This virus must be taken seriously we must take the vaccine and die trying. Those who are just scaring people are evil and they are bent to cause despondency and fear amongst the people.
CORONA kills and it is real.
81% of primary schools in Zimbabwe have no access to the internet while only 19% have, a status quo that is heavily stalling e-learning programmes in primary schools.
This was revealed by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) census of 2017.
The census methodology on access to the internet is defined as follows; access of an education institution to the Internet means the Internet is generally available for use by members of the institution at any time, regardless of actual use.
The census covered a total of 5 569 primary schools in Zimbabwe and of these 886 have internet access and 4 683 have no internet access.
According to the census, the following are the number of schools that have access to the internet by province; Harare 180, Bulawayo 101, Mash west 164, Masvingo 101, Midlands 77, Mat North 35, Mat South 43, Mash Central 33, Mash East 63 and Manicaland 83.
In an interview with Community Podium, the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Hon Cain Mathema said Government seized with the matter and plans are in place to provide schools with internet and e-learning infrastructure.
The minister acknowledged the herculean task of providing schools with e-learning facilities given the state of the economy.
“We are working to provide all our schools with e-learning facilities. It is not an easy task looking at the state of our economy but plans are in place” said Mathema.
Dr Themba Nyoni Director of Baobab Educational Assessment Centre said this is a serious worry that needs to be tackled by all sectors of society as a vast majority of learners (mostly in the rural areas) do not have internet access.
“Learners are encouraged to be active participants in their learning. Government has strongly advocated for Enquiry Learning – to develop a critical mind as opposed to development of robots through rote learning. The internet broadens the mind. It takes the learner to places where most of them would never physically reach. It helps the learner to explore and be informed,” he added.
Nyoni further explained that the end game in education is to create an informed pool of workforce and entrepreneurs. He went on to challenge the private sector to chip in because it stands to ultimately benefit.
“ICT is the now and the future. It just makes sense that all learners should be conversant with this field so that we give them an equal footing and competition with their peers across the world. Government alone cannot tackle this issue. It should be compulsory for the private sector to put aside a certain percentage of their profits and contribute towards an education fund. They are the future beneficiaries and so they should invest right from the beginning at Primary school level” concluded Nyoni.
Former Minister of Education, Sports and Culture David Coltart said the insufficiencies in e-learning and in education in general have been exposed this year. It’s has been the worst educational year.
“The harsh reality is that the e-learning programme has not reached the vast majority of children in our country. The few private schools that have managed to implement e-learning programmes have been deficient in many respects. This is a crisis that has been exposed by COVID19. The government is not in a position to implement the e-learning programme which will benefit the vast majority of children. The investment in the physical infrastructure of schools is catastrophic, the fabric of our schools is falling apart”, said Coltart.
The National President of Amalgamated Rural Teachers Association of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) Obert Masaraure said the e-learning programme has become discriminatory and further divides the society into the ‘haves’ and have nots’.
“We urge government to enhance the process of infrastructure development that allows for our primary schools to have access and availability of the internet to enhance e-learning”he added.
“In the interim, for rural schools we propose offline remote learning that ensures that rural children do not get left out as emergencies such as COVID19 pandemic have worsen education processes. Government should develop an education emergency response strategy in preparation for other foreseeable emergencies. Both parents and teachers must not only have internet access but also be capacitated to the internet resources” concluded Masaraure.
Mr Muziwandile Dube, a parent in Tsholotsho said that the absence or inadequacy of e-learning infrastructure does not augur well for learners in Zimbabwe and government must prioritise e-learning in primary schools in its budgetary allocations.
“Government should prioritise budgetary allocations for primary schools.”
Dube also made an impassioned plea to service providers to ensure that their services are affordable to primary schools
“Most primary schools in Zimbabwe rely on school fees which is paid in local currency which many ICT providers do not usually accept as they prefer foreign currency. Service providers such as Telone should review their prices downwards to make their services affordable for primary schools,” said Dube.
-community podium
By A Correspondent- A Bindura man was arraigned before a Bindura Magistrate Samantha Dhlamini facing a robbery case after he allegedly assaulted, and stole from a man he suspected to be having an affair with his girlfriends.
The magistrate Dlamini remanded Jezenga Mubaira (22) to 17 February 2021 on ZW$1 000 bail.
Prosecutor Edward Katsvairo told the court that on 10 January 2021 at around 1600hrs at Gombamusa village, the accused met the complainant, Rufaro Chinyanga (20) and started accusing him of falling in love with his girlfriends.
Rufaro tried to explain but, in a fit of rage, the accused grabbed him by his t-shirt and started assaulting him with open hands and fists.
The complainant’s hat, which contained US$53 fell down in the process resulting in the money falling too.
The accused then took the complainant’s money and fled from the scene.
Rufaro sustained a swollen face and was not medically examined. Of the robbed money, no amount has been recovered.
By A Correspondent- After announcing that he was dumping MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa arguing that his party no longer exists, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti has been accused of trying to trace his footsteps back to the ruling Zanu-PF party but the former Mwenezi East legislator has hit back at his critics saying he never resigned from Zanu-PF.
Bhasikiti was kicked out of Zanu-PF in 2014 on allegations of trying to remove the then President Robert Mugabe from power together with the Gamatox faction led by former vice president Joyce Mujuru.
Bhasikiti told TellZim News that people should understand that he never resigned from Zanu-PF but he did from the MDC Alliance.
“I was not kicked out of the MDC Alliance but I had to quit after realising that I could no longer belong to a party which does not exist. I supported Chamisa but since he no longer has a party, I decided to leave him.
“Now people are attacking my person saying I want to go back to Zanu-PF but I want to tell them that I never resigned from Zanu-PF.
“Everyone likes the old Zanu-PF which believed in the politics of gutsaruzhinji. Unfortunately, the current Zanu-PF has derailed from that principle and if they mend their ways I would support them.
“What I wanted was for MDC Alliance to become ideologically like Zanu-PF during its founding days but they have refused,” said Bhasikiti.
He said he was quitting politics and will focus on agriculture at his farm in Mwenezi where he says he is doing very well in maize seed and mango production.
“I am now doing politics of production. The people need to eat at the end of the day and I have decided to take it upon myself to feed the nation.
“We are now looking beyond politics and we want to utilize the land we were given. I am into maize seed and mango production. Our mangoes are being sold on the local market and we have exported some,” said Bhasikiti.
After the 2017 military coup of 2017 which downed Mugabe, Bhasikiti tried to find his way into Zanu-PF after pleading with the Zanu-PF Masvingo Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) for readmission but he was turned down.
-TellZim
FREELANCE journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and Zengeza West constituency legislator Hon. Job Sikhala have protested against ill-treatment by Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service (ZPCS) officers, who are discriminating them against other prisoners by bringing them to court while handcuffed and shackled in leg irons and defying court orders.
Although Harare Magistrate Lazini Ncube had ordered ZPCS officers to transport Chin’ono to and from prison separately from other prisoners to minimise the risk of spreading coronavirus as the freelance journalist is a recent contact of some people who tested positive to coronavirus, the prison guards defied the court order and continued to ferry him together with other inmates.
Chin’ono’s lawyers Harrison Nkomo, Paidamoyo Saurombe and Gift Mtisi of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) told Magistrate Ncube that ZPCS officers were defying a court order issued by Ncube ordering the prison guards not to handcuff or shackle the freelance journalist in leg irons.
Hon. Sikhala’s lawyers Jeremiah Bamu, Nkomo and Saurombe, who appeared before Magistrate Ngoni Nduna, also protested against the ill-treatment of their client, who was brought to court while handcuffed and in leg irons.
The lawyers protested that ZPCS officers were discriminating against Chin’ono and Hon. Sikhala as they were the only ones being shacked while other prisoners including those facing serious offences such as rape were not being subjected to such ill-treatment.
Assistant Commissioner Gapare from ZPCS will appear in court on Friday 15 January 2021 and respond to allegations of ill-treatment raised by Hon. Sikhala.
Chin’ono, whose application for refusal of remand was dismissed on Wednesday 13 January 2021 by Magistrate Ncube, will return to court on Thursday 14 January 2021, where a ruling on his bail application will be handed down.
Hon. Sikhala, who also had his application for refusal of remand dismissed by Magistrate Nduna, will return to court too on Thursday 14 January 2021 for continuation of his bail application before Magistrate Nduna.
Meanwhile, opposition MDC-Alliance party spokesperson Advocate Fadzayi Mahere will return to court on Friday 15 January 2021, where Magistrate Trynos Utahwashe will hand down his ruling on her application challenging the State’s bid to place her on remand on
charges of publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the state as defined in section 31(a)(i) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act alternatively section 31(a)(iii) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
Advocate Mahere, who is represented by David Drury and Andria Dracos of Honey and Blanckenberg Legal Practitioners and is assisted by Tinashe Chinopfukutwa of ZLHR, was arrested by Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) members on Sunday 10 January 2021.
On Tuesday 12 January 2021 when she appeared before Magistrate Utahwashe, she raised several complaints against ZRP members, whom she accused of detaining her in squalid cells at Harare Central Police Station, which are not fit for habitation.
Advocate Mahere told Magistrate Utahwashe that suspects were not being subjected to temperature checks and were not provided with face masks while in detention cells.
The MDC-Alliance party spokesperson disclosed that detained women were not being provided with sanitary ware and there was no toilet paper in the detention cells which were reeking of stale urine.
Magistrate Utahwashe ordered the State to probe the complaints filed by Advocate Mahere and provide him with a report by Friday 15 January 2021.
ALL HOPE IS NOT LOST
By Leonard Koni- Zimbabwean citizens in all walks of life have been fighting for change at great personal cost including human life. Every move has been countered with brutality and counter violence or by the use if captured courts and state securities.
The leadership today is all after the opposition than improving the people’s welfare.
There is a leadership disaster looming within the country. Our leaders have quickly forgotten what their mandate is. There is a lot of self centredness and leadership deficiencies. #
Instead of fixing the ailing economy and attending to the ravaging #COVID19 pandemic that has caused a number of deaths in our hospitals and communities, the leaders have resorted to arresting whoever tweets about what is happening in the society.
Our government has reduced itself to a social media monitor.
This inept, corrupt, clueless and cruel government continue the overdrive in arresting MDC-Alliance leadership and political activists who interrogates its behaviour. To be precise, they lack the intelligence to govern.
Today we continue to see ugly events of the persecution and harassment of opposition leaders and political activists.
This is actually tarnishing the image of the country and not the opposition. One will start to wonder why the government spent a lot of money paying some American and British public relations companies to spruce up the image of the country and yet destroying it overnight.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has forgotten and must be reminded to go back to his inaugural statement at National Sports Stadium where he told the majority of Zimbabweans that he was different from Robert Mugabe and that he was doing things the new way. “The voice of the people is the voice of God”, I quote.
Today, we no longer have a sound judiciary, a sound police force, a sound military, a sound intelligence team, a sound speaker of Parliament. Our courts should be citadels of justice but we see a different scenario.
All these have been eroded and fallen by the way side. The Zanu PF government has defiled and captured all these institutions and we we are left with a void leadership.
Last year we saw the arrest of journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and in 2021 the story continues with the arresting of Job Sikhala again and lately Fadzayi Mahere on spurious charges.
My question is – Will that arrest improve the country’s ailing economy or reduce the spiralling inflation in the country. Are the trio holding back the success of the country?
Its unfortunate that we still have many of blind Bartemeous who think that this government will take us to a promised land.
There is no justice in Zimbabwe as we speak. What is the rationale of locking people in leg irons in the 21st century as if they have committed gruesome crimes? All hope is not lost. The struggle continues.
By Wilbert Mukori- Zimbabwe has handled the corona virus pandemic like it has everything else the characteristic blundering incompetence.
“Masvingo marked a record single-day increase in the number of Covid-19 cases on Tuesday (11 January 2021) as it emerged that the Province is operating with only a single isolation centre for the public,” reported the Masvingo Mirror.
“Health officials confirmed 98 new cases of the novel coronavirus out of 123 tests done on Tuesday. They also confirmed that four people died during the same day.
“The cumulative cases in the province stood at 872 most of which are health officials. The national death toll is 446 as of yesterday.”
Zimbabwe has had very, very low corona virus cases and deaths up to now and we all know why – the country has not been testing anywhere near the level recommended by WHO and common sense would dictate. On many, many occasions Masvingo has reported zero cases and deaths only for one to notice the Province has not carried out even one single test that day.
So there were 123 test and 98 came out positive. Of the 872 cumulative cases in the province we are being told “most of which are health officials”. These facts point to one thing – the Province’s test regime has been wilfully inadequate.
By failing to test diligently many of the people with the virus were missed out and they continue to mix in society spreading the virus. And now the Province is paying dearly for it; the corona virus cases and deaths are soaring.
“Masvingo is operating with Rujeko Clinic as the only working isolation centre for Covid-19 patients, forcing health officials to release most patients home for self-isolation,” continue the Mirror report.
“The province does not have capacity to deal with cases since it lacks ventilators as well as qualified personnel to operate the machines, putting patients at risk of dying,”
The problem of failing to test adequately and keep track of the virus is not only a Masvingo Province problem alone but is one replicated country wide.
Some day, one of these fine days, Zimbabwe must carryout a through, no holds barred, investigation into why Zimbabwe had one of the lowest corona virus tests per capita in the world. And how much this single blunder contributed to the corona virus cases and deaths – many of which were missed from the official record – in the country.
“Seri kweguva hakuna muteuro!” (We cannot bring back the dead!) so goes the Shona adage. Still, if we can learn the lesson why so many people have had to suffer and many have dead when by testing widely the suffering and deaths could have been easily avoided!
Zimbabwe was weak and feeble; socially, economically, politically and which way; at the outbreak of the corona virus and the nation has paid dearly for it. If we are to emerge out of this nightmare at all then we must learn the lessons that landed us in this mess.
Zimbabwe must emerged out of corona virus pandemic a stronger nation than we were before the outbreak!
By Tinashe Eric Muzamhindo-
Context – In 1999, the then MDC leader and former Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Dr Morgan Richard Tsvangirai, whilst he was addressing more than 20 000 supporters in Rufaro stadium, called for the removal of the democratically elected Head of State, Robert Mugabe, so they say, and he said in his own words I quote ” What we want to tell Mugabe today, is that please go peacefully, if you don’t want we will remove you violently”.
This was regarded as treason charges, and immediately Tsvangirai flew to South Africa, where he addressed journalists, and called for the later to step down from office. We witnessed a number of episodes, where George Bizos flew in to assist Tsvangirai, after her was charged with treason, death penalty, if found guilty.
Application
Politics was applied, and Tsvangirai was acquitted after a number of Heads of States, diplomats and other strategic people engaged the former Zanu PF leader. Tsvangirai went further to contest more than four elections, losing to Mugabe.
Mutual understanding
In 2008, despite a run-off which saw dozens of opposition members being killed, the then MDC leader, and former Prime Minister of Zimbabwe signed a Global Political Agreement, which gave birth to an inclusive arrangement. Who thought Mugabe would share the same table with Tsvangirai?
Narrative :
1. Forgiveness2. Reconciliation3. Way forward4. Working arrangement
Context
In August 16, 2017, Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema was dragged before the courts of Law, after being accused of wanting to overthrow a democratically elected Head of State, Edgar Lungu, after his motorcade failed to pave way for the Head of State.
The allegation attracted a death penalty, and he spent more than 90 days in prison. It took former Nigerian President , Obasanjo, Yoweri Museveni, Jacob Zuma, and many others to plead with Lungu to release the main opposition leader.
Application
Hakainde Hichilema was acquitted, and the Judge made it clear that he had terminated the proceedings but their discharge was conditional.
Narrative
1. Edgar Lungu and Hakainde Hichilema met at a church function and greeted each other
2. Lungu paved way for dialogue between his party, and main opposition party
3. Peace and tranquility was restored in the Southern Africa country
What is opposition?
1. A contrast or antithesis
2. Alternative
3. Designated Government
4. Check the excesses of the ruling party
Current Trajectory
We have the leading Journalist and filmmaker Hopewell Chin’ono, St Mary’s Mp , Job Wiwa Sikhala, MDC Alliance national Spokeswoman, Fadzai Mahere, and Mayor of Harare, Advocate Jacob Mafume.
The non of our business concept :
Fun part of it, Jacob Mafume is number 2 in office, if it was in the Western world, Mafume would be moving around in an escort or motorcade. Do you know what number 2 means? Someone regarded with high calling, higher Office, and he is the second in command in Harare, he is the eye of potential investors.
In the best interest
I’m not saying they are not guilty, my simple advice is you can use your Political influence to come up with a strategic plan to waiver this and peace must prevail in our country. The current picture and image of our country is not looking good
Thank You Shumba, thank You Murambwi, and once again thank You Mr President “
My two cents advice :
1. Get rid of toxic politics
2. You have a legacy to protect
3. You need to be remembered for something that is of importance
4. You need a neutral, Strategic Political advisor
5. You need to engage Nelson Chamisa, despite your political differences
6. Bury the hatchet, and bring everyone to the table
7. We have a Political crisis, which must be resolved by all Political leaders
8. You need a sound Development Policy to give a proper direction of our country
9. Those giving you advice won’t be there, when something bad happens, they will throw Spanners on you
10. Exhaust on Strategic engagements with your political opponents
11. Accept constructive criticism
12. Remove bad apples around you
13. Erode bootlickers around you
14. You cabinet is not inspiring.
15. Change within your cabinet is imminent.
16. You have a lot of deadwoods in the current cabinet
17. There must be a proper Economic Recovery framework to address the implications of Covid-19 pandemic
18. Set up a taskforce which is Inclusive of Corporate World, Business Community, church, Researchers, Development Practitioners, academics etc
19. Redirect expenditure towards Critical sectors of the economy
20. You are not being felt on the ground.
Please take note of number 20
21. Those around you or closer to you are feeding you with information you want to hear, and later discard you, make use of this opportunity to creat a LEGACY which will be carried in future generations
22. Last but not least, you will loose nothing by engaging Nelson Chamisa, and others on a properly constituted , structured dialogue process
23. Livelihood of people matters most especially during this Covid-19 pandemic era.
24. You need an inspiring team around you.
25. Looting in the public sector has gone to the extreme, and develop a Strategic Thinking Approach on Governance & Leadership to save your name
Kindly be felt on the ground !!!
Tinashe Eric Muzamhindo is the Head of Zimbabwe Institute of Strategic Thinking – ZIST, and he can be contacted at [email protected]
No to demolitions
The MDC Alliance is strongly opposed to the oncoming houses demolitions in Chitungwiza by the Zanu PF led central government, through the office of the Provincial Development coordinator, (PDC). He has used council officials to carry out such a heinous act in the midst of the rain season and the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly this has been done without the authority or a resolution of the council. A clear act of interference with the work of the council which is against the spirit and letter of devolution agreed upon by Zimbabweans in chapter 14 and section 274 of the constitution.
We consider this move in the same lenses as we viewed operation Murambatsvina and all the house demolitions inclusive of the most recent ones that happened in Budiriro, Ruwa et al; as inhumane, inconsiderate and evil.
Judging by the constitution of Zimbabwe and the numerous political manifestos in the run up to the last election, it is the government’s duty to provide shelter for Zimbabweans and nevet to destroy it. Citizens pay taxes only for purposes of development and not otherwise.
It is with utmost disgust that the ministry of local government is abusing state institutions and overriding MDC Alliance run councils to impose destruction of people’s homes. Sadly the illegitimate Zanu PF government is abusing the law to victimize all MDC Alliance Mayors and Councillors for standing with the people.
We are aware that land barons are Zanu PF offshoots and people are conscious that the technical wings of councils are controlled by the Zanu PF led central government and these two entities cooperated to fleece citizens of their hard earned money and allowed them to erect housing structures in full glare of the authorities only for them to declare these completely built houses illegal.
Many of our councillors have been arrested for standing with and for the people and is the reason why Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume is unjustifiably imprisoned and the same reasons behing the illegal recalls of our councillors.
We reiterate that the MDC Alliance is a party of the people, by the people, for the people and will always stand by the people in accordance with our social democratic ideology and the Smart Cities Agenda launched in March 2020 at the Smart Councils Festival by the People’s President Advocate Nelson Chamisa.
We stand with the people against housing demolitions.
Clifford Hlatywayo
MDC Alliance Deputy National Spokesperson
By A Correspondent- A fisherman died on Thursday morning after being attacked by a crocodile while fishing at Lomagundi Lakeside in Lake Kariba.
Reports suggest that hippopotamuses tried to save the man from the reptile attack after he was snapped by a huge crocodile while fishing knee-deep in the waters of Lake Kariba.
The man, however, died several minutes after being retrieved. He had sustained a deep gush on the hand which was nearly severed from the body and a wound to the rib cage.
His body was taken to Kariba District Hospital mortuary.-statemedia
MDC Alliance legislator for Marondera Central, Caston Matewu, has urged the general populace to boycott Proton Bread after it emerged that more than 40 workers contracted the Coronavirus.
Earlier, we reported that authorities at the company were not taking serious measures to protect workers from the virus.
We present Matewu’s statement below.
BOYCOTT BUYING PROTON PRODUCTS UNTIL THEY SANITIZE THE BAKERY AND GET ALL EMPLOYEES TESTED FOR COVID BUY AT YOUR OWN RISK
*Proton Bakeries* – Do the right thing!!!!
It is disheartening to note that over 40 wokers at Proton Bakeries have contracted Covid 19 and yet the bakery still operates like nothing has happened.
I have been talking to various employees who say that they are still told to come to shifts and do thier jobs despite the spread of the pandemic at the workplace. Worse still most of these workers have not been tested. The senior managers are given risk allowance whilst the rest of the workers suffer. This is an indictment of corporate greed.
When a company puts profits over saving lives then you know there is something fundamentally wrong with their Directors.
Proton must immediately shut down thier plant for a week and allow ALL workers to be tested and disinfect all work stations. I will be promptly writing to the Ministry of Health and the local Provincial Medical Director PMD about the situation at one of our biggest companies.
By allowing Proton Bakeries to remain open they are now the biggest Covid 19 super spreader in our Town. The hundreds of people employed at the bakeries interact with thier families and the rest of the Marondera community therefore they have the propensity to diffuse this disease to the rest of the town.
I humbly plead with Proton Bakeries to do the right thing before the residents take it upon themselves to act.
Stay safe Covid kills
Hon Caston Matewu
Marondera Central
The People’s MP
By Bobi Wine | A mob of violent thugs, incited by an authoritarian president, storm a democratic legislature and disrupt controversial constitutional proceedings. The invaders damage property, injure lawmakers, and drag many opposition legislators from the chamber.
No, I am not describing the assault on the United States Capitol last week; rather, I refer to the one the Ugandan strongman Yoweri Museveni orchestrated in 2017 on the Parliament in which I serve. The previous year, Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, claimed to have won a fifth presidential term in an election that international observers said fell far short of international democratic standards. Seemingly bent on remaining president for life, Museveni then initiated a campaign to alter a clause in Uganda’s constitution that required presidential candidates to be under the age of 75. That clause would have prevented Museveni, now 76, from contesting the 2021 presidential election, which is scheduled to take place on Thursday.
Appalled by Museveni’s antidemocratic charade, I joined an opposition campaign to stop the constitution from being altered. Museveni’s response was to deploy plainclothes special forces to Parliament to shut down our endeavor. The special forces, which operate as Museveni’s private army, proceeded to batter opposition lawmakers and drag us by force from the floor. I was injured along with many other members of Parliament, including Betty Nambooze and Francis Zaake, who were singled out for abuse and had to be flown abroad for emergency medical care. Nambooze’s injuries have left her with permanent disabilities.
In the week following the raid on Parliament, assailants threw a grenade at my home that struck my 12-year-old son’s bedroom window. The homes of other critics of the regime were attacked as well. In the face of such violence and intimidation, our legislative effort disintegrated: Museveni’s constitutional amendment passed quietly in December 2017, enabling him to run in Thursday’s election and in all elections thereafter.
Uganda’s 2021 presidential election is shaping up to be as unfree and unfair as ever. As one of ten opposition candidates challenging Museveni, I have faced a relentless barrage of violence. Security forces have detained me on multiple occasions and brutalized my supporters. In mid-November, while I was being held behind bars on unspecified charges, my supporters took to the streets in protest. Security forces responded by murdering 54 demonstrators and bystanders, including at least one child.
Last week, my team and I submitted an official complaint to the International Criminal Court detailing the Museveni regime’s illegal detention and torture of my colleagues and me, as well as the often lethal violence it has meted out against our supporters and other unarmed civilians. During a press conference to announce our complaint that was livestreamed on the Internet, Ugandan security officers surrounded my vehicle, yanked me out of it against my will, and roughed me up. I was eventually allowed back into the vehicle, but officers then drove alongside my team and me, launching tear gas and pepper spray at us even as stunned reporters watched over Zoom. If Museveni’s forces are brazen enough to commit such barbaric acts while the world is looking on, consider what they must be willing to inflict on less well-known Ugandans every day.
It pains me to say this, but the international community is part of our enduring problem in Uganda. Over the years, Museveni has managed to position himself as a military ally and development darling of many Western governments that look the other way when it comes to his horrendous human rights record. During the 1990s, the Museveni regime funneled weapons to rebels in Sudan on behalf of the administration of President Bill Clinton; today, Ugandan forces fight in the U.S.- and European-supported African Union Mission in Somalia and serve as guards under U.S. command in Iraq. Museveni also embraced neoliberal economic reforms that have been hard on the poor but endeared him to institutions such as the World Bank.
Uganda’s 2021 presidential election is shaping up to be as unfree and unfair as ever.
In nearly 35 years in power, Museveni’s government has received tens of billions of dollars in direct foreign aid from Western countries, including the United States and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Much of this money has been properly spent on projects such as AIDS treatment and malaria prevention, but much has also been siphoned off by Museveni’s henchmen. And as multiple researchers have documented, billions of dollars in taxpayer and development funds have been diverted to the security forces—the same forces that attack me, my colleagues, and our fellow citizens with impunity. As a result, Uganda’s military budget has steadily swollen over the years. It ballooned from $24 million in 1992 to nearly $400 million in 2020, even as poverty deepened, social services atrophied, and basic human rights and good-governance benchmarks went unmet.
By partnering with the United States to fight terrorism, in particular in Somalia, Museveni has positioned his regime as a guarantor of stability in East Africa. He has also won international praise for welcoming refugees from war-torn countries—even though many of them are victims of conflicts that Museveni himself stoked. But just as often as Ugandan forces have trained their sights on terrorists abroad, they have trained them on Ugandan citizens at home.
In the late 1980s, in northern Uganda, for instance, Museveni’s forces undertook what the political scientist Adam Branch, director of the Centre of African Studies at Cambridge University, has called “a counterinsurgency without an insurgency.” This operation, ostensibly aimed at the remnants of the armies of previous regimes, was in fact ethnically motivated and unleashed such staggering violence upon local civilians that it provoked real insurgencies—including the murderous Lord’s Resistance Army of Joseph Kony, which tortured, kidnapped, and killed tens of thousands of Ugandans, many of them children, over the next two decades. Throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century, Museveni not only arguably prolonged the conflict with the LRA for his own ends but cynically used the violence to justify repurposing foreign development aid for military aims.
The international community is part of our enduring problem in Uganda.
Ugandans who have sought to peacefully oppose Museveni’s abuses have also been met with state terror. In 2011, for instance, security forces opened fire on demonstrators who had taken to the streets to protest government corruption and economic mismanagement, killing at least nine people. Then, in 2016, the Ugandan army slaughtered 150 unarmed people, including at least 15 children, in a western region of the country where relations with the central government were tense. In 2018, security forces assassinated my driver and arrested me and four of my parliamentary colleagues, as well as dozens of our supporters, holding us for days without access to counsel or even to our families. When we were finally taken to court, many of us—including me—were on crutches.
Despite these horrendous crimes against Ugandan citizens, international funds have continued to flow to Museveni’s government. Just this past June, the World Bank released $300 million in relief funds, ostensibly meant to combat COVID-19, which then promptly vanished into a classified military budget that is now being used to repress me and my colleagues who are demanding a free and fair election.
As part of Museveni’s cynical strategy to retain power, he is now trying to paint our movement as violent and sponsored by nefarious “foreign actors.” On December 30, I was arrested along with 100 of my aides as we prepared to campaign on an island in Lake Victoria called Kalangala. Forty-nine of these aides have been falsely charged with illegal possession of ammunition and firearms. I have been speaking out against electoral violence since even before my political career began. And throughout my campaign, I have maintained unequivocally that ours is a nonviolent struggle for democratic change and must be a peaceful revolution. The charges of violence by my staff members are merely a pretext for Museveni and his enablers—in Uganda and in the West—to justify their suppression of our long-denied democratic aspirations.
Thankfully, U.S. policy toward Uganda may be shifting. The House Foreign Affairs Committee recently called on President Donald Trump’s administration to impose sanctions on five current and former heads of Ugandan security agencies for human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture. What is more, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, led by then ranking member Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, condemned my arrest last month and demanded a free and fair election. Menendez also called for greater scrutiny of U.S. support for Museveni in the event that Thursday’s election is rigged.
In recent weeks, Americans have for the first time in their lives faced the specter of a violent transition between presidential administrations. Ugandans have never experienced a peaceful transition of power. In fact, with Museveni’s regime approaching 35 years of age, the vast majority of Ugandans have never witnessed any transition of power at all.
This week is a pivotal one for my country. Millions of young people demanding reform and a say in their future are pitted against a small cadre of tyrants committed to retaining power at all costs. My sincere hope is that the international community will watch this week’s elections in Uganda closely. International attention matters now more than ever. Indeed, it is what has kept me and my colleagues alive up to this point. If Museveni steals another election on Thursday, we hope that good people of conscience around the world will hold him and this regime accountable.
By A Correspondent- The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has abandoned the search for the bodies of four passengers still missing after an Isuzu double cab was swept off the low-level Gweru River Bridge on Sunday.
The vehicle and two bodies – the driver and a passenger – were pulled out of the river by the police sub-aqua unit and members of the Gweru Fire Brigade earlier this week.
The driver has since been identified as Tinashe Chiwawa, who was employed by Gweru City Council in the engineering department.
Chiwawa was buried yesterday in Gweru while the body of the passenger is still to be identified.
The vehicle was towing a mining compressor when it was swept off the bridge.
Midlands provincial police spokesperson Inspector Emmanuel Mahoko yesterday told State media that an eyewitness told the police that he saw six people including the driver in the vehicle.
The eyewitness further claimed that three men got out to assess the bridge and one passenger said they carry on as the water was not deeper than the day before.
LONDON. — Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is relishing Sunday’s showdown with Liverpool and insists his players are ready for “a great test” after Manchester United claimed top spot in the English Premier League football table.
Paul Pogba’s deflected second-half volley secured a 1-0 victory over Burnley at Turf Moor on Tuesday night that saw United open up a three-point cushion over the champions ahead of their clash on Super Sunday.
The victory also extended United’s unbeaten away run in the league to 15 games and means they sit top of the pile after 17 games for the first time since their last title-winning campaign under Sir Alex Ferguson in 2012/13.
“It’s a brilliant position to be in,” Solskjaer told Sky Sports. “Of course we know we’re going to the champions who have had an unbelievable three-and-a-half-seasons, we know it’s going to be a difficult game for us, but we are ready for it.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better time to play them because we are in good shape, good form and hungry, which is a good thing because these boys want to get better and that’s the test of their character and quality.”
In his post-match press conference, Solskjaer added: “We’re looking forward to it. Of course, we enjoy being where we are (at the top of the league) at any time, be that the first game or the last game, which is a big, big difference.
“We’re looking forward to it, it’s a great test of where we’re at against a good team. We’re almost halfway through the season so it’s a little bit of an indication of where you’re at, but no one will remember the league table on January 12.”
United’s latest victory on the road featured a number of contentious VAR decisions, with Robbie Brady and Luke Shaw both escaping more severe punishment for challenges at either end of the field in the same passage of play before Harry Maguire saw his first-half opener controversially disallowed.-The Herald
THE Civil Protection Unit (CPU) is on standby for evacuations in flood prone areas of the country after the Meteorological Service Department (MSD) warned that tropical cyclones and serious floods remain a real danger in the second half of the 2020/21 rainy season.
The weather forecaster predicted extremely heavy rains exceeding 30 millimetres (mm) in 24 hours to sweep across most parts of the country this week.
“Heavy storms, flash floods, flooding and tropical cyclones cannot be ruled out as the season progresses,” read an MSD statement yesterday.
Already, some dams in the country are spilling and rain continues to fall in abundance in a rainy season expected to end in March.
The ground is already supersaturated with water in most areas, so all rain water immediately becomes run-off and increases the chances of dangerous flash flooding countrywide.
The MSD had predicted normal to above normal rainfall in the 2020/21 rainy season owing to the La Nina climate pattern in Pacific Ocean, with improved rains expected across the Sadc region.
The weather forecaster said the country has recorded more than 300mm of rains so far across most parts the country, pointing to significant rainfall.
Normally from October to December the country receives subdued rainfall compared to the January to March second-half of the rainy season.- Chronicle
A KARIBA fisherman died on Wednesday morning after being attacked by a crocodile while fishing at Lomagundi Lakeside in Lake Kariba.
The man had seemingly been saved from the jaws of death by unlikely saviours, hippos, after being snapped by a huge crocodile while fishing knee-deep in the waters of Lake Kariba.
However, he died several minutes after being retrieved. He had sustained a deep gush on the hand which was nearly severed from the body and a wound to the rib cage.
His body was taken to Kariba District Hospital mortuary.-The Herald
LONDON. — Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is relishing Sunday’s showdown with Liverpool and insists his players are ready for “a great test” after Manchester United claimed top spot in the English Premier League football table.
Paul Pogba’s deflected second-half volley secured a 1-0 victory over Burnley at Turf Moor on Tuesday night that saw United open up a three-point cushion over the champions ahead of their clash on Super Sunday.
The victory also extended United’s unbeaten away run in the league to 15 games and means they sit top of the pile after 17 games for the first time since their last title-winning campaign under Sir Alex Ferguson in 2012/13.
“It’s a brilliant position to be in,” Solskjaer told Sky Sports. “Of course we know we’re going to the champions who have had an unbelievable three-and-a-half-seasons, we know it’s going to be a difficult game for us, but we are ready for it.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better time to play them because we are in good shape, good form and hungry, which is a good thing because these boys want to get better and that’s the test of their character and quality.”
In his post-match press conference, Solskjaer added: “We’re looking forward to it. Of course, we enjoy being where we are (at the top of the league) at any time, be that the first game or the last game, which is a big, big difference.
“We’re looking forward to it, it’s a great test of where we’re at against a good team. We’re almost halfway through the season so it’s a little bit of an indication of where you’re at, but no one will remember the league table on January 12.”
United’s latest victory on the road featured a number of contentious VAR decisions, with Robbie Brady and Luke Shaw both escaping more severe punishment for challenges at either end of the field in the same passage of play before Harry Maguire saw his first-half opener controversially disallowed.-The Herald
ON 8 January 2021, Zimbabwean police arrested award-winning journalist Hopewell Chin’ono at his home in Harare for allegedly publishing a falsehood or communicating false information which is prejudicial to the state.
After that police also arrested opposition leaders Job Sikhala and Fadzayi Mahere on the same charges.
This emanated from a widely circulated video on social media in which a police officer is seen quarrelling amid pushing and shoving with a group of people accusing him of striking and killing a baby with a baton.
The mother of the baby is also seen grabbing the policeman, with people saying the police officer had killed the child.
However, police say they later investigated and found out that the scuffle had indeed happened after the police officer had shattered a windscreen of a Kombi with the baton, resulting in the baby being hit by debris, but eventually the child did not die as initially feared by the mother and the crowd, and as later widely circulated by Chin’ono and others.
As a result, Chin’ono was arrested and is being charged under Section 31 (a)(iii) of the Criminal (Codification and Reform) Act. This part of the law has since been repealed; it no longer exists.
A Constitutional Court judgment exists in the case of Constantine Chimakure and others (CCZ6 of 2014), ruling that the offence Chin’ono is currently facing is non-existent as it was struck off in 2014 as unconstitutional anyway.
This clearly means Chin’ono’s arrest is arbitrary and has no foundation at law.
Constitutionally and legally, he cannot be convicted on a law that does not exist and on something which is not an offence at law.
This means the police’s case against Chin’ono has no legal basis at all, not just because the law was repealed as it was unconstitutional, but also because the state – as the Constitutional Court ruled – cannot appoint itself and arrogate itself powers of being a monitor of truth.
That is not the function of the state. A state cannot and should not behave like an unruly class monitor – or bully-harassing journalists and citizens, prescribing to them what is true out there and what is not.
While freedom of expression and media freedom are not absolute – in other words they have limits – those fetters are clearly defined and articulated in the constitution and the law.
The grounds upon which freedom of expression and media freedom are legally restricted are spelt out clearly and unambiguously in the constitution.
This is because freedom of expression and media freedom are fundamental and critical, hence entrenched rights, and a cornerstone to the building of a free and democratic society, which Zimbabwe aspires to be.
Strong constitutional protection of freedom of expression and press freedom cannot tolerate the imposition of self-censorship on free speech and press through fear of arrests or lengthy sentences of imprisonment for offences of publishing or communicating false news, as the court ruled.
In 2000 the UN Special Rapporteur commented on false news arrests and issues saying: “In the case of offences such as publishing or broadcasting ‘false’ or ‘alarmist’ information, arrests and prison terms are both reprehensible and out of proportion to the harm suffered by the victim.” This is simply because a free press is the lifeblood of any democracy.
Journalists, of course, must always verify their stories first – in other words, uphold the ethics, values and principles of the profession- and check information before publishing, but this cannot be a pretext for police to arrest journalists arbitrarily and outside the law.
Journalism is basically a science of verification, yet arbitrary arrests are not the solution if and when journalists fail in their responsibilities and duties.
We urge law enforcement agents to do their job professionally and within the limits of the law, not to act arbitrarily, in as much as we urge journalists to be professional.
By arresting Chin’ono and other journalists arbitrarily, the Zimbabwean state will be contravening not just its own constitution, but also the African Charter for Human Rights, in particular Article 6 and Article 14, which Zimbabwe signed and ratified.
This means SADC and the African Union should always speak out against such violations of freedom of expression and press freedom.
We, therefore, note with dismay SADC and the AU’s silence at this gross violation of freedom of expression, press freedom and indeed human rights.
We further note that this is not the first time this has happened in Zimbabwe. Journalists have routinely been arrested and intimidated in Zimbabwe – for years.
It is not the first time Chin’ono himself has been arrested. It’s the third time in as many months.
By arresting and harassing journalists, the government is not only inflicting pain on the media practitioner concerned and sending a chilling effect across the media landscape but also damaging its own image irreparably in the process.
There is nothing to be achieved and gained by arresting journalists and indeed citizens in general, except damaging government’s reputation and making Zimbabwe appear like an authoritarian, rogue state.
Together, we can make Zimbabwe a safe place for journalists to work in and a better nation for all to live in.
ZINEF chairperson,
Dumisani Muleya.
VIDEO LOADING BELOW….
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance activist, Prosper ‘Kedha’ Mandaza has died.
MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has described ‘Kedha’ as the party’s unsung hero.
“An Unsung hero Prosper ‘Kedha’ Mandaza…
It has been a tough and rough start to the year.I have just received the sad news about the sudden passing on of a great believer and fighter for Change.
A young entrepreneur in the Car industry.
His close friend told me the brother was from Budiriro.
I’m also told he was muChinja wemhando. We salute such heroes of the struggle for a New Zimbabwe. Rest in Power Kedha,” President Chamisa said in a statement.
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance activist, Prosper ‘Kedha’ Mandaza has died.
MDC Alliance leader, President Nelson Chamisa has described ‘Kedha’ as the party’s unsung hero.
“An Unsung hero Prosper ‘Kedha’ Mandaza…
It has been a tough and rough start to the year.I have just received the sad news about the sudden passing on of a great believer and fighter for Change.
A young entrepreneur in the Car industry.
His close friend told me the brother was from Budiriro.
I’m also told he was muChinja wemhando. We salute such heroes of the struggle for a New Zimbabwe. Rest in Power Kedha,” President Chamisa said in a statement.
Tinashe Sambiri|MDC MDC Alliance vice president, Hon Tendai Biti has condemned the coordinated persecution of party members and perceived Zanu PF foes.
The persecution of perceived Zanu PF opponents is a reflection of desperate measures, according to Hon Biti.
Hon Biti also accused Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cornered regime of taking advantage of the lockdown to torment political rivals.
“It’s a sign of the times when a regime turns into a mass business the sorry exercise of human rights abuse .
The ongoing prosecution and persecution of Fadzai , Hopewell, Allan , Jacob and Job are desperate calculated actions of a doomed regime- hakuna Nyika yakadai,” said Hon Biti.
Tinashe Sambiri|The Methodist Church in Zimbabwe( MCZ) family has been plunged into mourning following the death of Senior Minister, Reverend Allen Matsikiti on Tuesday.
Reverend Matsikiti was stationed in New Highfield Circuit in Harare.
In a statement, MCZ
General Secretary, Reverend Dr Mujinga described Rev Matsikiti’s death as a terrible blow to the church.
Read statement below:
Sisters and brothers in Christ, it is with heavy heart that I announce the passing on of REVD ALLEN MATSIKITI who was stationed in New Highfield Circuit.
Rev Matsikiti died this evening(last night).
We are still waiting for the Clinical report and we will give you more details in due course.
MHSRIP
Revd.Dr Mujinga
GENERAL SECRETARY
Tinashe Sambiri|The Methodist Church in Zimbabwe( MCZ) family has been plunged into mourning following the death of Senior Minister, Reverend Allen Matsikiti on Tuesday.
Reverend Matsikiti was stationed in New Highfield Circuit in Harare.
In a statement, MCZ
General Secretary, Reverend Dr Mujinga described Rev Matsikiti’s death as a terrible blow to the church.
Read statement below:
Sisters and brothers in Christ, it is with heavy heart that I announce the passing on of REVD ALLEN MATSIKITI who was stationed in New Highfield Circuit.
Rev Matsikiti died this evening(last night).
We are still waiting for the Clinical report and we will give you more details in due course.
MHSRIP
Revd.Dr Mujinga
GENERAL SECRETARY
PROMINENT businessman and arts promoter Kudzanai Kangara was buried in Bindura on Monday. He died on Sunday after showing signs of Covid-19.
Kangara was 46 years old. His son Darlington could not shed more light since he was busy with funeral arrangements.
“It’s hard to swallow, I have no much time on the phone.
“I can confirm Mudhara will be laid to rest in Bindura on Monday (yesterday).
“Yes, it’s true he had Covid-19 symptoms. He had shortness of breath,” he said.
According to a reliable source, Kangara (late) was rushed to a private hospital in Chitungwiza after showing signs of deterioration.
“On Thursday, Boss Kangara was rushed to the hospital in Chitungwiza in an ambulance. “From that time he kept on deteriorating and he took his last breath on Sunday morning,” said the source. Kangara was not only a businessman in Bindura, but a father figure to the community.
Orphans, widows and other less privileged people benefited from him. An employee of Kangara Gold Buyers said his death was a loss to the family, community, Bindura and Zimbabwe.
“We have lost a caring boss and a father figure. He was not difficult to approach and he could listen to us anytime.
“He had an open door policy where every worker was able to approach and associate with him. “Takarasikirwa zvikuru and the gap will be difficult to fill. “We are still in shock, the year started on a bad note.”
Meanwhile, the arts industry has once again been plunged into mourning following the death of music promoter Kangara. Musicians who benefited from his generosity expressed sorrow. Gospel musician, Mathias Mhere said it was sad to lose someone like Kangara- H- Metro
