Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiCZ) has urged Southern Africa Development Committee (SADC) to adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
CiCZ made this call in a statement to mark the International Human Rights Day.
The organisation argued that repressive governments in the region had taken advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to shrink the political and civic space.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said in a report that cases of human rights violation have increased under the administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa,
Scores of human rights campaigners and protesters have been arrested in an expansive clampdown in the country.
‘The Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to autocratic governments to shrink political and civic space in the above-mentioned countries mainly due to rights violations under the enforcing of Covid-19 regulations’, the coalition said.
‘More importantly, we reiterate that basic human rights and fundamental freedoms are inherent to all human beings, inalienable and equally applicable to everyone and that every one of us is born free and equal in dignity and rights’.
CiCZ called for the renewal of social contracts between governments and citizens.
‘Post the Covid-19 pandemic, there is an imperative need for new social contracts between governments and citizens while political, economic, social and cultural rights need to be put at the centre of recovery efforts’, it added.
CiCZ also urged the SADC bloc to mobilise resources to assist vulnerable groups.
In a speech to the nation on 4 August, President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared that his government was facing ‘many hurdles and attacks’ and that ‘the bad apples who have attempted to divide our people and to weaken our systems will be flushed out’.
He added, ‘We will overcome attempts at destabilisation of our society by a few rogue Zimbabweans acting in league with foreign detractors’.
But the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum condemned the use of coercion on dissenting voices, stating that the fragility of the country cannot be managed by the resort to coercion.
Source: 263chat
Photo source: Paul Kagame
