ACTSA reports: ‘Voices from the Frontline: Repression and Shrinking Space for Civil Society Organisations in Zimbabwe’
ACTSA launched a joint report focused on seven recommendations from people working in the frontline of Zimbabwean civil society in the UK’s House of Lords. The report, prepared with the University of Liverpool reflects the views of civil society leaders, interviewed just prior to the August elections. The interviewees cannot be identified, such is the hostile environment in the country, but their voices and recommendations are loud and clear: ‘we cannot give up – renewed regional and international solidarity is key to the future of Southern Africa’.
In Zimbabwe, women and men are abducted in the middle of the night by people in unmarked cars and taken away. Some never return alive. Lawyers seeking answers for their clients are assaulted and charged with ‘obstructing justice’. Others are jailed and refused their constitutional right to bail. As these attacks on lawyers rise, activists working for democratic rights are also under increasing threat of violence by state agents, who act with impunity.
The report ‘Voices from the frontline: Repression and Shrinking Space for Civil Society Organisations in Zimbabwe’ brings together themes of major concern to civil society including denial of due process under the law, systematic attacks on civil society groups, and the intimidation of professional groups to support the Mnangagwa regime.
Zimbabwean civil society is under siege at a time when it desperately needs reinforcement from solidarity movements worldwide. ACTSA hopes this report will refresh dialogue between civil society in the UK, Zimbabwe and funders and decision makers, to find ways forward in the months ahead.
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You can download the report here
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