Concern over abducted Zimbabwean activist

[LazyLion]

A pro-democracy activist and journalist abducted in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Monday is still missing.

Itai Dzamara, 36, was abducted from a barber shop in Glenview as he was having a haircut on Monday morning, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said in a statement on Tuesday.

His abductors were travelling in a white twin-cab bakkie with a "blurred" number plate, the lawyers' group said.

Witnesses said the men accused him of stealing a cow. Since his abduction, Dzamara's phone has been switched off and he has not had any contact with his family.

Rumours have been circulating on social media and at least one news website that he has been found dead, but they have not been confirmed and no reliable source is cited.

"Lawyers have since filed an urgent... application to compel whoever is holding Dzamara to bring him before the court so as to determine if he should really be in detention," ZLHR said.

Dzamara had been staging an on-off protest in central Harare calling for President Robert Mugabe to step down. Police in the capital beat him unconscious in November 2014, and attacked a rights lawyer who had gone to his defence.

Twitter user Chipo Matshe wrote Tuesday: "Please everyone make sure that #ItaiDzamara is found and brought back safely! Like the good #Zimbabwean civil servants we are!"

Journalist Kelvin Mupungu said: "Updates on #ItaiDzamara I just spoke to Pat Dzamara the brother, he said he still doesn't know. So let's pray --Matewu."


Source : Sapa /str/aw/fg/th/jk
Date : 10 Mar 2015 15:48

 

[LazyLion]

TSVANGIRAI ACCUSED OF 'HIJACKING' ABDUCTION CASE

Zimbabwe's ruling party has accused Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai of "hijacking" the abduction of a pro-democracy activist in a bid to drum up support for the opposition, it was reported on Wednesday.

Journalist and activist Itai Dzamara, 36, was still missing following his abduction from a barber shop in a Harare township on Monday.

Rights group Amnesty International described his abduction as "deeply alarming".

Zanu-PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo told the Herald newspaper: "I do not even know the person in question [Dzamara] but [Tsvangirai] is trying to find a case to please his masters because they have nothing to offer the people."

Tsvangirai on Tuesday said he held President Robert Mugabe and his party responsible for Dzamara's abduction.

The activist had been holding protests in central Harare calling for Mugabe to resign since late last year and has allegedly previously been beaten and abducted by police and suspected state agents.

However, Moyo insisted Zanu-PF was "not lawless".

"If they reported to police we are law-abiding and if there is anybody who commits a crime, police know what to do," Moyo told the Herald.

The MDC and government critics say the police are biased against the opposition.

Opposition politician and lawyer David Coltart said on Wednesday Dzamara's disappearance was "another in a long line of people over the last three decades".

Coltart wrote on Facebook: "I demand that those responsible release him immediately. This appalling conduct must end if Zimbabwe is to progress."

Relatives of Dzamara, whose Twitter account says he is the founder of Trinity Media in Zimbabwe, travelled to Goromonzi on the outskirts of Harare on Tuesday to investigate claims of a body there, but found nothing, lawyer Charles Kwaramba told Sapa.


Source : Sapa /str/aa/fg/jk/jje
Date : 11 Mar 2015 10:44

 

[LazyLion]

ZIM POLICE PROBE ABDUCTION OF ACTIVIST

Zimbabwean police said Wednesday they were investigating the abduction of an anti-government activist, which the opposition attributes to state security agents.

"Mr Itai Dzamara's wife reported that he was abducted by five male adults on Monday," police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said.

Civil rights activists and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai attribute the abduction of the former journalist, who has called on President Robert Mugabe to step down, to security agents.

"We are in no doubt as to the perpetrators of this abduction. We hold Mugabe and his regime responsible for this morbid and senseless act," Tsvangirai said.

Noel Kututwa, a southern Africa deputy director for Amnesty International, called the abduction "deeply alarming."

In December, Dzamara sustained injuries while police were repressing a protest rally that he had organized.

Mugabe, 91, is the only leader Zimbabweans have known since independence from Britain in 1980.


Source : Sapa-dpa /mm/th
Date : 11 Mar 2015 11:32

 

[LazyLion]

ZIM NOT PROTECTING DZAMARA: CZC

The Zimbabwe government does not consider abducted activist Itai Dzamara worthy of protection, the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said Wednesday.

Dzamara, 36, was abducted from a barber shop in Harare on Monday. He has not been seen or heard from since.

"This is not the first time that Itai Dzamara's freedom and rights have been trampled on by the state," the coalition said in a statement, recalling Dzamara's assault at the hands of police in 2014.

Dzamara has led little-attended protests calling on President Robert Mugabe to step down.

"The government's previous acts of commission and omission show that government's attitude has been that Itai Dzamara is not worthy and guaranteed of any constitutional protection," the statement read.

"If there is harm to the activist, it will be squarely on the doorstep of the state and its repressive apparatus," it said.

Zimbabwe's information minister Jonathan Moyo said on Twitter he had "no information whatsoever about that matter".

"Our info is he's a former journo who's now a political activist. We don't oversee activists," Moyo said.


Source : Sapa /str/dm/th/ks/lp
Date : 11 Mar 2015 16:23