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JOHANNESBURG – It is time for the United Nations to intervene in the crisis in Zimbabwe.
That’s the opinion of the vice president and outspoken MP of the main opposition MDC Alliance, Job Sikhala.
He has been detained in maximum security preventive prison for a month.
Sikhala was arrested last month and charged with promoting violence after organizing anti-government protests.
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Sikhala is one of more than a dozen anti-government activists who went into hiding after police issued an alert seeking information leading to his arrest ahead of the anti-government protests scheduled for July 31. He has been detained in the notorious Chikurubi maximum security prison for the past month and was finally granted bail by the High Court of 50,000 Zimbabwean dollars (500 US dollars).
“There are serious abuses and also violations of international law when it comes to human rights issues in Zimbabwe. Torture is an international crime, kidnapping is an international crime and these are things that are practiced in our country on a daily basis. Reports have been produced and we wonder why the United Nations was silent about it and we call on the international body to deal with the Zimbabwe issue once and for all, ”Sikhala said.
The former student leader and lawyer who has been arrested 65 times but has never been convicted since his activism began in the late 1990s, says the famous Chikurubi maximum security prison in Harare, where he was imprisoned, is hell on earth and it should close.
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“The conditions in Chikurubi Maximum Prison are that it is not worth inhabiting by humans, at all. It is a prison that must be condemned and in the new order we are going to make sure we close down that horrible infrastructure, which the government says is a prison, in a museum, “he added.
The Zengeza West MP added that, despite being imprisoned, he will not stop trying to end human rights abuses in his country.
