Zimbabwe: Civic Space Shrinks

Amnesty International (AI) has decried the rapidly shrinking civic space in Zimbabwe despite the southern African nation marking its 43rd year of independence.

Development Diaries reports that Zimbabweans are marking the day amid criminalisation of dissent and targeting of political activists and human rights defenders.

AI’s Deputy Director for East and Southern Africa, Flavia Mwangovya, said, ‘[43] years after independence, authorities are yet to guarantee in practice the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly which are increasingly being threatened despite being guaranteed under the constitution and international law’.

Mwangovya noted that the right to freedom of peaceful assembly has continuously been violated and undermined with the authorities refusing to give clearance for some of the main opposition party’s rallies.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a 2022 report, said that the administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa had failed to take meaningful steps to uphold human rights and ensure justice for serious abuses primarily committed by security forces.

USAID noted in a 2021 report that significant human rights issues in the country included credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killing of civilians by security forces; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment and harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.

In its 2023 Freedom in the World report on political rights and civil liberties, Freedom House ranked Zimbabwe as ‘not free’, with the southern African country earning 28 points out of a possible 100.

Development Diaries calls on the Zimbabwean authorities to investigate issues of rights abuses in the country and guarantee the socio-economic rights of every Zimbabwean.

Photo source: LSE Blogs

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