By Robson Ruhanya
The Award-Winning Human Rights Defender Obey Shava was brutally attacked by 4 mercenaries who left him with a broken leg struggling for his dear life. CCC Namibia demands justice for the diligent human rights defender. The lawyer can’t be criminalized. Defending opposition activists and human rights defenders is not a crime.
Perpetrators should be brought to book. This level of panic and human butchery should be resisted with equal measure, especially less than 55 days before the historic plebiscite. Earlier this year, Kudzai Kadzere, a renowned human rights lawyer was left enduring a broken arm for defending CCC members who were undertaking a private meeting in one of the suburbs in the city of Harare. The captured police unleashed terror on the lawyer during his legal duties representing change champions in Budiriro. Right now, the CCC interim Vice-Chairperson and human rights lawyer, Hon Job Saro Wiwa Sikhala has endured state-sponsored incarceration for representing the deceased CCC activist, Moreblessing Ali.
Sikhala has suffered for more than a year caged at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison since the 14th of June 2022 to date. This crackdown on lawyers, human defenders, and political activists should be addressed forthwith. It is difficult to achieve free, fair, credible, and unfettered elections on the 23rd of August given the violence, intimidation, banning of CCC rallies, arbitrary arrests, and long pretrial detentions 6 weeks before harmonized elections. Citizens should brace for dangerous freedom against state repression. It is not a crime to belong to the citizen’s movement led by President Advocate Nelson Chamisa.
CCC Namibia is cognizant of the reason why Obey Shava was brutally butchered. As a resident of Chikombedzi, he was punished by ZANU-PF for mobilizing residents who attended the rally addressed by the CCC president yesterday before he proceeded to Tshovani Stadium where the rally was blocked by heavily armed police officers. We are quite aware of the great job he is executing in defense of human rights in the motherland. The district condemns ZANU-PF thugs and state securocrats for the illegal attack on the lawyer.
The people of Zimbabwe should vote big against the crackdown on lawyers and the gross abuse of human rights defenders. Being an alternative government is constitutional. Obey Shava is a citizen entitled to political freedoms like anyone else. Breaking his leg is the epitome of great panic and desperation by the politically inept Harare regime. Citizens must brace to win big and defend big as we near the watershed elections in the fatherland. It is quite perturbing to witness a crackdown on lawyers in Zimbabwe on the eve of such a crucial contest where citizens are anticipated to express their political choices without fear of death and any insecurities.
Obey Shava is a human rights defender who subscribes to the national democratic revolution. CCC is not a terrorist organization, it is a legal political party that is allowed to operate at law. Outlawing the popular movement will invite people’s outrage ahead of the harmonized elections. 23 August is D-Day to address these shenanigans once and for all. We are sick and tired of authoritarianism in the tea-pot-shaped country located in Southern Africa. We appeal to SADC, AU, EU, and the United Nations to assist us with promoting a conducive elections environment in Zimbabwe before, during, and after the critical process.
It is now imperative for the regional, continental, and international bodies to send their election observers and monitors to Zimbabwe. For two decades, our country has endured the abuse of political opponents, journalists, and those who differ politically from the ZANU-PF party. We are demanding an abrupt end to disputed elections in the motherland. There is a need to amplify our revolutionary voices advocating for justice, freedom, and equality. Zimbabwe is for all of us, it is not the private property of ZANU-PF.
