The struggle for human rights is real: Bere

Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) director Dzikamai Bere was recently honoured with the NGO Director of the Year award at the National Association for Non-Governmental Organisations (Nango) annual retreat in Nyanga. The award was “a testament to Bere’s unwavering dedication as a visionary leader and fearless advocate for human rights”. Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) caught up with Bere (DB), who shared his experiences, motivation and challenges in pursuit of justice and ensuring the observance of human rights.

AMH: Congratulations on winning the award. What does it mean in light of the work that the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights)  is doing in Zimbabwe?

DB: Thank you very much. This is not my first award, but this is the first from a local organisation which makes it special.

In the light of the work of ZimRights, the award is special for the following reasons:

1. ZimRights is the largest human rights community in Zimbabwe. It is encouraging to get acknowledgement from the community that you serve.

The Nango award has a lot of community participation hence its very special. It aligns with one of the ZimRights values – ‘community’. It was even evident in the room where the award was presented that the community owned it and confirmed it. As an activist who spends 80% of his time in the communities, that was special.

1. Human rights work is very tough. It can be lonely and thankless especially in the Zimbabwean context where human rights defenders are treated as criminals.

Every day we are attacked for defending human rights. Three times this year alone, the media groups aligned to political hooligans has called me ‘a nuisance.’ I don’t remember a year in which my dignity and integrity has been attacked more than this year. These attacks can be exhausting. Getting the community to say, ‘We see you. We acknowledge you. We thank you.’ That is very encouraging. Believe me, I know that the work I do is important. But there is value in the community standing up to say, “We are with you.”

1. This year marks five years since I took over the leadership at ZimRights at a very tough time when some of our critical stakeholders were doubting us and moving away.

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Five years later, we have made good progress and restored faith in the movement. I am a firm believer in celebrating the work of human rights defenders.

Every time I get an opportunity to celebrate human rights defenders who are doing great work, I do not think twice. I celebrate people who inspire me. I celebrate the team I work with at ZimRights. We do our own awards internally. If feels good for once for someone to say, ‘Hey, pause and seat back. Today, we are celebrating you.’

AMH: What is the state of human rights in Zimbabwe? Would you say human rights are under threat in the country?

DZ: The human rights situation in Zimbabwe is deteriorating by day. In September 2024, we reported that political activists are most responsible for human rights violations.

Our 2024 State of Peace Report again identifies political activists as the main obstacle to peace. Yes, human rights are under threat in Zimbabwe.  Zimbabwe has been in a protracted human rights crisis for a long time now.

AMH: Which key and fundamental civil liberties would you say are under threat in Zimbabwe?

DB: First you are aware that the government has blatantly branded human rights groups as enemies of the state.

What followed these attacks is the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment  Bill (PVO Bill) which was recently passed by the Parliament and is awaiting presidential assent.

Overnight, that Bill is going to delegitimise over 70% of NGOs that are currently supporting communities in various ways including empowering them to hold their leaders to account, building resilience, and supporting access to health care and quality education at a time when the government is incapacitated by greedy and corruption. That development threatens a wholesale erosion of rights, creating a human rights crisis.

This adds on to already existing issues where the police in Zimbabwe have criminalised the right to protest and the right to association.

The government has sabotaged the national peace and reconciliation agenda and imposed itself to carry out Gukurahundi hearings.

The police choose to arrest activists willy nilly and in many cases deploy torture on suspects instead of proper investigations.

Every election season, our nation is turned into a war zone extending a legacy of contested elections. In August this year, Zimbabwe hosted the 44th Sadc Summit which was characterised by massive human rights violations as the government sought to silence critical voices. This is a crisis.

AMH: How has your organisation been working with other civic organisations to ensure that human rights are observed in the country?

DB: As you may know, ZimRights is Zimbabwe’s oldest and largest grassroots movement of human rights activists. It provides the community foundation upon which Zimbabwe’s human rights movement is built, providing grassroots support to organisations that are interested in working in the communities.

That is why you will see our members supporting organisations that do monitoring of human rights violations, civic engagement and observation of elections.

In the run up to the 2023 elections, we launched the people’s human rights manifesto to bring human rights values and virtues at the center of the electoral discourse, effectively seeking to shift electoral power from politicians to the communities where it rightly belongs.

Since then, over 212 duty bearers have signed  up to the Manifesto.Our members are using the manifesto to hold duty bearers to account for their human rights obligations.

While we speak about a human rights crisis in Zimbabwe, the real crisis is when people are excluded in matters that affect their daily lives. When people choose, out of fear or otherwise, to keep their voices law and keep away from the discourse that shapes the direction of the nation.

The real crisis is a crisis of us, the people, when we are missing in processes that matter and our voices a silent. 

Our vision is to see communities actively lead in creating and sustaining a culture of human rights. That is the essence of ZimRights Shifting Power to the People Strategy.

AMH: Zimbabwe has been flagged by international organisations over its checkered human rights record. What needs to be done to improve that record?

DB: First, the government must drop the PVO Bill and the accompanying hate language against those deemed critical of its policies.

A civic space roundtable must be established to promote dialogue toward the protection of civic space with clear steps towards self regulation.

The police must respect human rights and operate within the dictates of the law, decriminalising the rights to protest and allowing citizens to enjoy their freedom of assembly and association.

All complaints against the police including allegations of torture must be investigated and the perpetrators must be punished to break the cycle of impunity. Now that the Zimbabwe Independent Complaints Commission (ZICC) is now operational, it must begin to hear some of the cases of human rights violations against the police.

 All political prisoners must be released. Doing this will mark the begin of journey to a society that respects human dignity.

AMH: In recent times opposition activists and human rights defenders have been brutalised and arrested by the state. What scope of work are you doing to assist them?

DB: We have consistently spoke out against weaponisation of the law to suppress dissent. We continue to call upon the police and the prosecution to stop weaponisation of the law and allow free assembly and expression.

AMH: The State has been criticised for using lawfare to curtail basic freedoms. Which laws do you think are an affront to freedoms and for what reasons?

DB: The relevant law is the Maintenance of Peace and Order Act (Mopa) which imposes onerous conditions for exercising freedom of assembly and association and gives the police power to ban a gathering. 

To a great extend it is more of the selective application of the law. For example, when ZimRights wanted to hold a procession on the launch of the Human Rights Manifesto, the police  refused for the procession to go ahead.

 But when some activists want to protest against sanctions, they get police protection. While the right to protest has been banned in Zimbabwe for everyone, anti-sanctions protestors have been allowed to put up their camp at the US embassy. That is selective application of the law.

We also have the Vagrancy Act, a colonial law that punishes homeless ness instead of addressing it. Through this law, the police are gives powers to arrest ‘homeless’ people.

Over 1,5 million homeless people a subjected to daily harassment by the policy, simply because of their economic status.

AMH: What nature of work have you been doing to ensure that the laws are improved.

DB: We are doing advocacy for the repeal of the Vagrancy Act. We have launched and submitted a petition to the Parliament of Zimbabwe, which has since started the process of looking at the law.

We are also engaging the government of Zimbabwe and other actors with a proposal for a nation building approach to the issue of civic space, as an alternative to the toxic PVO Act.

AMH: What nature of collaborative work do you do to encourage Zimbabwe to uphold human rights?

DB: We encourage the government of Zimbabwe to collaborate with CSOs is addressing the pressing human rights issues.

CSOs have been supporting the government in meeting its human rights obligations like the right to health and the right to education. These collaborations must be strengthened.

We urge CSOs to put communities at the center of everything they do to avoid elite capture of the community agenda.

We encourage international groups to support not dwarf out community movements that are fighting just causes.

AMH: What would be the impact of the PVO Bill on the work of civic organisations if enacted into law?

DB: In a survey that we just concluded on the state of civic space, 92.5% of the NGOs that we spoke to believe that the PVO Bill will have a negative impact on their work. Only 4.5% feel the Bill will have a positive impact. 3% think nothing will change.

Various reasons are proffered for this perception. Some feel that the registration process will have a lot interference from the political actors especially for organisations that work in the sector that is deemed to be critical of the government and its policies.

Organisations such as the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) have submitted their registration papers but by the time of this report, ZPP has clocked more than 12 months with their registration approved.

Other groups expressed concern that the proposed law has a lot of ambiguities which give the regulator power to interfere with operations.

Others felt that there has already been premature implementation of the PVO Bill before it becomes law further worsening the uncertainty.