More than a hundred officers, backed by armoured trucks, moved to block a march on Friday – organised by a coalition of opposition groups in Harare, the capital – in the latest round of the most intense unrest in the former British colony for nearly a decade.
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Dozens of police blocked off the site of an opposition rally to demand electoral reforms before 2018 when 92-year-old President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled the southern African country for decades, will seek re-election.
The so-called mega demonstration had been organized by 18 opposition political parties, including the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai and the Zimbabwe People First, which was formed by former Vice President Joice Mujuru.
Police in Zimbabwe fired warning shots and used tear gas and water cannons to suppress an anti-government protest in Harare on Wednesday.
The US embassy has warned its citizens to avoid areas where demonstrations are likely ahead of a large protest planned by Zimbabwe opposition parties for Harare on Friday.
Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party have ruled the country since it gained independence from Britain following a bitter war against white settlers in the country who had seized illegal independence.
Violent protests against Mugabe’s rule are a regular occurrence, with demonstrators uniting around #ThisFlag on social media to condemn high unemployment, acute cash shortages and corruption, The Africa Report said.
On Friday, Zimbabwean police fired teargas into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators in Harare 20 minutes after the Harare High Court declared the demonstration legal. As law enforcement agents of this country, we will not be found wanting in defending the democratic rights of the Zimbabwean people. “Next Friday, we will do exactly what we have done today and if that is going to be thwarted, then our capacity to demonstrate will also be tested”, Mutasa vowed, adding that Zimbabweans “are going to continue demonstrating until we vote Mugabe out of power”. People’s anger and desperation are real … “But we tell them that it is not going to happen here”.
Many protesters were reported to have been injured on Wednesday, but police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said she had no information on that.
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The protesters want the next vote in 2018 to be supervised by worldwide observers, including the United Nations. They demanded Mugabe scrap plans to print “bond notes”, the regime’s version of the USA dollar.
