Fri 16 August 2019:
Zimbabwe’s police patrolled the streets of the capital, Harare, Friday morning while many residents stayed home and shops were shut fearing violence from an anti-government demonstration.
Zimbabwe’s High Court has upheld the police ban on the opposition protest. The court early Friday rejected the application from the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, to declare the planned protest action to be legal.
Police in riot gear and with water cannons maintained a heavy presence in downtown Harare and in residential areas across Harare early Friday morning. Police cordoned off central Africa Unity Square, where the demonstrators had planned to gather. Police and government officials warned that the demonstration would be illegal and protesters would “rot in jail.”
The opposition party had planned what it said would be a peaceful protest to press President Emmerson Mnangagwa to set up a transitional authority to address economic problems and organize credible elections. The protests will spread to other cities next week, the opposition said.
To discourage the protests teams of police officers searched vehicles at checkpoints on roads leading into the city. Police said the protests are likely to be violent, and warned people to stay away.
“Do not take part, you will rot in jail,” shouted police officers through megaphones on Thursday in downtown Harare and some residential areas. Amnesty International Thursday accused Mnangagwa’s administration of “using some of the brutal tactics seen under the government of Robert Mugabe,” said Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for southern Africa. “Instead of listening to protestors’ concerns about the economy, the authorities have used torture and abduction to crush dissent and instill fear.”
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