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Government has approved tough new laws that will criminalise protests and “cooperating with foreign governments” or allege abductions.
Speaking during the post cabinet briefing Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said “the amendments will criminalise the conduct of isolated citizens or groups, who for self-gain cooperate or connive with hostile foreign governments to inflict suffering on Zimbabwean citizens and to cause damage to national interests,”
“Other actions that will become punishable include planned and timed protests deliberately designed to coincide with major international, continental or regional events or visits. There are also unsubstantiated claims of abductions that are concocted to tarnish the image of government and the amendments will criminalise such conduct,” she added.
President Mnangagwa’s government, which is under pressure from western governments to end abductions and torture of its critics, early this month said it was crafting a law to punish citizens that communicate with foreign governments and ‘harm national interests.’
The amendments appear to be a climbdown from the proposed Patriot Bill, which the government said it was drafting.
It said the proposed law would be modelled along the United States’ Logan Act.
The government wanted to criminalise corresponding with a foreign government without approval, making false statements which harm the country and conniving with hostile foreign governments to damage the country’s interests.
Zimbabwe was condemned by the United Nations and the African Union after security forces brutally clamped down on protests against corruption on July 31.
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