The government must act to protect former Zimbabwean opposition MP Roy Bennett and grant him political asylum in South Africa without delay, the Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday.
”The DA believes that Bennett’s application for asylum provides the South African government with the ideal opportunity to signal to Harare that it believes there is a crisis in Zimbabwe, and that it will not tolerate tyranny in the region,” DA Chief Whip Douglas Gibson said in a statement.
Bennett fled to South Africa last month and has applied for asylum, claiming his life is in danger from security forces in Zimbabwe.
This follows allegations in that country’s state-run Herald newspaper that he is linked — through the discovery of an arms cache — to a plot to topple President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF government.
According to media reports last week, Bennett has applied through Lawyers for Human Rights for international asylum.
Gibson said Bennett had lost his land, his livelihood and had been jailed for his political beliefs.
”The South African government was quick to provide a haven for the unsavoury (deposed Haitian President) Jean Bertrand-Aristide, a known abuser of human rights. It appears reluctant to offer Bennett the same treatment despite his record of fighting for the rights of ordinary Zimbabweans.
”I therefore strongly urge the South African government to expedite Bennett’s application for political asylum before more harm is done to him and his family,” he said.
Bennett spent nine months in jail with hard labour following an incident in May 2004 when he pushed Zimbabwe’s Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa during a heated debate in that country’s Parliament.
The sentence he received was condemned at the time by international human rights organisations as being grossly disproportionate to the offence committed. — Sapa