Jan Raath in Harare
A small piece of history was made in Harare yesterday when the Zimbabwe Law Society was able to stage a demonstration without getting beaten up. The last time they tried, two years ago, they were set upon by riot police and lashed until they had welts and bruises. Yesterday’s protest was over the arrest of Alec Muchadehama, a senior human rights lawyer. Lawyers marched to the Ministry of Justice carrying placards. As they arrived, they were met by four riot policemen, with batons, and a senior officer. No one was assaulted. The officer escorted Chris Mhike, the head of the local chapter of the law society, upstairs to the Minister’s office to deliver the petition. Mr Mhike returned in five minutes. "Unfortunately the Minister was not there," he said. "So I pushed it under his door." The lawyers cheered and dispersed, happy not to have been assaulted. Before undertaking the action Mr Mhike took a vote among the 100 lawyers, pointing out that police had not sanctioned the demonstration. "There is a risk," he said. There were no dissenting voices. At the same time, two human rights lawyer were on trial nearby for "public violence." In March, they were walking back to work after lunch and passed a demonstration being broken up violently - one of many squashed since the power-sharing government was formed - and got arrested. "At one level things have changed," said lawyer Innocent Gonese. "At another, everything is the same".
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