Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been remanded in custody until next month and formally charged with treason after his party called for anti-government protests last week, state prosecutor Stephen Musona said on Tuesday.
Musona said the head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), who was arrested on Friday, was charged under the country’s tough security laws with treason for inciting violence.
He was remanded in custody until July 10 by a magistrates’ court in Harare but given leave to apply for bail at a higher court.
His arrest came on the last day of a week of protests against President Robert Mugabe. The MDC claimed that 800 of its supporters had been arrested in the five-day national strike last week.
Tsvangirai already faces charges of treason that he plot ted to have President Robert Mugabe assassinated.
The fresh charge is that he plotted a violent overthrow of the Mugabe government by calling for mass anti-government demonstrations. Tsvangirai denies both charges, saying he has always advocated a peaceful change of government in Zimbabwe.
The opposition party’s secretary general, Welshman Ncube, a co-accused in the first treason trial, was arrested yesterday it was thought he may also face new treason charges. He was questioned yesterday by police, who were expected to detain him after his appearance in the high court.
Ncube has since been released, and all charges dropped. His lawyer Innocent Chagonda said: ”The state appears to have withdrawn charges against Welshman
Ncube. I have just been informed by the attorney general’s office that he has been released.”
Chagonda added that he did not know why the charges against Ncube were dropped.
Mugabe warned that he would continue his campaign against the opposition in a rare interview broadcast by the South African Broadcasting Corporation: ”As long as there is that fight, I am for a fight … And I can still punch.”
The 79-year-old president dismissed suggestions that he is ready to retire after 23 years in power.
South Africa has encouraged him to stand down and hand over to a government of national unity as part of a deal. But Mugabe rejected the suggestion. ”I don’t want to retire in a situation where people are disunited and where certain of our objectives have not been achieved,” he said. ”It would be nonsensical for me, a year after my election, to resign.”
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based organisation, warned that the Mugabe government had increased its abuses of civil rights in recent months.
”Not only have the army and police personnel failed to protect people from human rights abuses, but they are now carrying out abuses themselves,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the organisation’s Africa division. ”Recent legislation has drastically curtailed citizens’ rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association.” The report says political violence, prevalent in rural areas since 2000, has become common in urban centres, and non-political organisations are being targeted.
Police raided the offices and home of filmmaker Edwina Spicer in the last few days. ”They swooped on our house Friday and again on Monday,” said Ms Spicer, who is currently in London. ”They accused me of beaming bad reports about Zimbabwe from our premises. When staff members said we had not been here for a week, they were beaten and required hospitalisation.”
Spicer said that equipment worth an estimated £20 000 was seized.
Human Rights Watch joined numerous Zimbawean civic organisations in calling for the Mugabe government to re-establish the rule of law, disband youth militia, withdraw military personnel from residential areas, and revise legislation contrary to international human rights law.
The government is confronted with growing opposition. The five-day strike shut virtually all industrial and commercial activity and prompted a massive show of intimidatory strength by security forces.
Residents of Harare’s townships reported beatings by Mugabe’s youth militia in retribution. Some claimed that the cabinet minister Elliot Manyika directed the beatings, according to Zimbabwe’s Standard newspaper. Manyika carried a list of hundreds of names of people who were marked for retaliatory violence, according to the report.
The new treason charges against Tsvangirai centre on two political rallies last month where the state claims he urged supporters to take to the streets to oust Mugabe and the Zimbabwean government.
Ncube is accused of calling on supporters, in statements the government says were made last week, to take part in demonstrations and march to State House, Mugabe’s official residence. Under draconian new security laws the protests were declared illegal.
Tsvangirai’s lawyer, George Bizos, said the latest allegations were ”spurious” and intended to keep his client in custody in the wake of last week’s protests.
”The charges are to prevent him from exercising his rights as a politician and leader of the opposition,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited Â