Mugabe outlaws opposition and bans free speech
The Daily Telegraph (UK)
December 19, 2001

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Harare - Legislation that has been likened to the worst excesses of the apartheid era in South Africa will be pushed through Zimbabwe's parliament this week, effectively outlawing President Robert Mugabe's political opponents and stifling free speech. The new laws allow Zimbabwe's police to ban political gatherings at will and prosecute anyone who attends a meeting where the government is criticised. They effectively ban opposition political parties and end freedoms of association, speech and movement. They are expected seriously to impair efforts by opposition activists to mount a credible campaign to challenge Mr Mugabe in the presidential elections in April. Details of the Public Order and Security Bill, which was tabled this week, emerged yesterday as a commercial farm manager, Duncan Cooke, became the latest victim of Mr Mugabe's thugs. Mr Cooke, 25, was attacked on Butleigh Farm, 80 miles north of Harare, by six government officials who were inspecting his employer's land for resettlement. When he asked them to move their car to make way for a tractor he was slashed with a panga, receiving serious head wounds. Outside the private hospital in Harare where Mr Cooke underwent surgery there was alarm on the streets about the new legislation, which will affect the lives of everyone in the country, including tourists, who will be arrested if found not to be carrying passports.

Tawanda Hondora, chairman of Lawyers for Human Rights, said:

Criticising the president will be a criminal offence, and any political party campaigning in presidential elections will seek to do that, and the sentence is 10 years' imprisonment, or a heavy fine, or both."

Mr Hondora said the effect of the new laws would be to ban any political party which challenges the ruling Zanu PF, including the key opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Anyone who publishes any information likely to "excite people or express dissatisfaction with the president, the government or the police" will commit an offence and could face 10 years' jail. Mr Hondora said:

"This bill is worse, by far, than any previous colonial legislation in this country or in apartheid South Africa. It is unprecedented and ends all freedoms of movement, speech and association guaranteed under the constitution."

The bill also introduces heavy sentences for petty acts, such as throwing a stone at a government building, which can be construed as terrorism and could carry a sentence of 20 years' or life imprisonment. Anyone who complains about the way a policeman discharges his duties could go to prison for 10 years. Under the new legislation police can detain suspects for seven days before bringing them to court and bail would automatically be denied for those accused of terrorism, murder and rape.

The government also hopes to push through other repressive legislation which will make it a criminal offence for any journalist, foreign or domestic, to continue working if not approved and licensed by the government. Another piece of pending labour law will outlaw all strikes. The government said the inflation rate had gone higher than 100 per cent for the first time in the nation's history, despite price controls enforced since October. Mr Mugabe said in his state of the nation address yesterday that America's effort to impose sanctions on him and his senior aides was "repugnant" and "provocative". The US Congress has passed a bill, still to be signed into law, allowing the White House to impose sanctions on Mr Mugabe and any aides found to be behind political violence. He blamed Zimbabwe's "erstwhile colonial oppressor Britain" for masterminding a European Union move towards sanctions.  TOP