JUST a day after President Robert Mugabe came out openly in support of the violent removal of informal traders who have flooded the country’s cities and towns, an international human rights group has urged restraint.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday urged government to “work with vendors”.
“Police harassment and arrests of street vendors has rapidly escalated in recent weeks since the Harare City Council launched its ‘clean-up campaign’. The lack of a vending licence is no grounds for beating and jailing people who are desperate to earn a living,” said Dewa Mavhinga, senior Africa researcher at HRW.
“The majority of the street vendors are women living in extreme poverty, part of the more than 70% of Zimbabweans who live on less than $1,25 per day. The government should halt the crackdown and work with the vendors and their representatives on a comprehensive plan that would allow them to work while addressing the city’s concerns”.
Mugabe on Wednesday threatened to kick out foreign embassies and civic groups accusing them of inciting vendors to defy the government order to move.
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Early this month newly-appointed Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Saviour Kasukuwere ordered the Harare City Council to clean up the city.
HRW said a day after the new minister’s announcement, Harare “municipal police began their crackdown, using unnecessary or excessive force, beatings, arbitrary arrests, and unlawful seizure and destruction of goods”.
Critics of the government claimed the State had used the military disguised as municipal workers.
Around the middle of the month police arrested 16 more street vendors, including Sten Zvorwadza, Samuel Wadzai and Lucy Makunde, leaders of the National Vendors’ Union of Zimbabwe. They were charged with inciting public violence after they demanded that municipal police return goods seized from them.
They were yesterday released on $50 bail each amid reports of torture while in detention, according to HRW.
“Several vendors were injured in the beatings. But prison officials denied the detained vendors access to medical treatment, despite a court order secured by their lawyer,” Mavhinga said.
More activists have been arrested while protesting against the denial of bail for the 16 and HRW urged government to abide by international conventions on the treatment of prisoners and the rights group called on government to “immediately drop their spurious charges against the vendors and activists”.
“Zimbabwe’s government should respect and protect the rights of all citizens, including street vendors and the activists who represent them,” said the group, adding “beating women who are struggling to survive as street vendors and bringing trumped-up charges against them is no way to treat Zimbabwe’s citizens”.