Lawyers harassed for stopping illegal radio seizures by CIOs

By Violet Gonda
19 December 2006

State security agents have in recent weeks been confiscating radios in some rural areas, allegedly looking for subversive content. Last month several members of organised listening clubs had their radios taken in Mberengwa. In Gokwe several teachers who had been given “Ranger Freeplay” radios by the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) also had their radios seized by state agents who claimed to be from the President’s Office.

The radios were distributed to radio listening clubs in remote areas to allow people to listen to independent news broadcasts from outside of Zimbabwe.

Two lawyers from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) who responded to these reports managed to get a court order and had the radios in Gokwe returned while the matter was being finalised in the courts. But Rangu Nyamurundira and Dzimbabwe Chimbga of ZLHR were allegedly subjected to harassment and intimidation by state agents last Friday.

Nyamurundira told Newsreel that Gokwe police refused to serve court papers on the CIOs. He said; “An Assistant Inspector Dube informed us he could not go ahead and do what had been ordered – that is to serve the papers on members of the President’s Office because this was also a state institution… which of course we did not agree with because this was a court order and his refusal was actually in contempt of court.”

The human rights lawyers were left with no choice but to serve the court papers on the CIO operatives themselves. The lawyers allege they were subjected to frustrating tactics and harassment during the process. At first they were told by one of the respondents, a Mr Mlotswa, to serve the Minister of State Security Didymus Mutasa. But they insisted that the court papers specifically noted that Mlotswa and another CIO, Emanuel D Takadiyi, were the respondents.

Nyamurundira said they were told that before they could serve the papers they had to supply their own personal details, giving their names, home addresses, contact numbers, and fathers’ names.

A ZLHR statement said; “To insist that lawyers carrying out their legal mandate give their personal details is clear harassment aimed at intimidating them from doing their work.”

It was alleged that the two CIO operatives working in the President’s Office at Government Complex in Gokwe went to Simbe Primary School and Njelele Secondary School in November and December respectively, where they produced a list with names of teachers who had been given the radios.

The two state agents demanded four teachers hand over the radios to them, claiming that it was a state security issue.

The human rights group urged “the Minister of State Security and state agents to stop the illegal and forceful seizure of people’s radios, a clear violation of their right to property and right to receive and share information.” The lawyers also appealed to the security forces to respect court orders.