On the morning of August 7, four masked men tried to break into the offices of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC), a network of groups fighting for democratic freedom in a country where it is often deadly to dissent.
Inside the Harare building, three staff members scampered to hide as the men smashed a security camera outside the gate and tried to force their way in. It was only after neighbours who witnessed the attempted break-in assured the staff that the men had left after triggering an alarm that they came out of hiding. Staff members have since avoided the office.
“No one wants to go there. It was a very traumatic experience for them, and they feel unsafe,” Blessing Vava, regional director of the coalition, told Al Jazeera. The intruders, he said, were likely government operatives as the incident followed a government-owned newspaper accusing the group of planning demonstrations.
“It has been their modus operandi, and there have been threats issued by the president’s spokesperson,” he said. Al Jazeera contacted Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Home Affairs, which made remarks this month about agitators seeking to unleash civil disobedience, to comment on the claims but did not receive a response.
The incident at CiZC comes during crackdowns on pro-democracy activists and opposition members as Zimbabwe gears up to host a summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on Saturday in Harare.
It’s the first time the 16-member bloc will meet in Zimbabwe in a decade. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa will also assume leadership of the SADC – a critical first for his administration.
But that glory is marred by what activists call “paranoia” from the government as police units flooded the streets this week in anticipation of protests.
Since June, security officials have attacked activists and opposition party members at private hangouts and protest venues, accusing them of trying to disrupt the SADC summit. Seventy-eight people, including Jameson Timba, leader of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), were arrested without bail on June 16 at a political gathering that authorities said was “unauthorised”. On June 27, another set of protesters demanding the release of the detained CCC members outside a court in Harare were also bundled away by security forces.
About 160 people have been arrested since June, according to Amnesty International. Police officials hit protesters during arrests and psychologically torture them in detention, lawyers representing them said.
Aljazeera
