MDC Alliance Member Battling for Life After Suffering Torture

Zimbabwe’s MDC Alliance Youth Assembly National Executive member Takunda Madzana is battling for his life after being tortured last night.

According to a Tweet by David Coltart, former Zimbabwe Minister of Education, Sport, Arts & Culture, “Madzana was abducted at his home by a group of unknown assailants who gruesomely fractured his body parts before dumping him in the bush”.

It is suspected that government agents were behind the abduction and torture, but no one as of yet has claimed responsibility for the attack.

This comes as another attack on leading figures in Zimbabwe’s opposition, as last Thursday MDC’S Vice-President Tendai Biti was apprehended in Harare on trumped-up charges and faced trial in Harare’s Magistrate Court.

Mr Biti has since been released, but other opposition voices have not been so lucky.

Hopewell Chin’ono, a leading investigative journalist in Zimbabwe was arrested two weeks ago and has not been seen in public since. Mr Chin’ono had exposed the alleged illegal awarding of health contracts in Covid-related government procurement.

The allegation eventually led to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s health minister being dismissed in disgrace.

Shortly after the story broke, Mr Chin’ono was arrested in his home by state security agents. He posted a video on Facebook of the agents approaching his house, and said, “I have locked myself inside. They are outside […] alert to the world for me”.

Zimbabwe is one of the most egregious offenders in the region of silencing opposition voices, arresting journalists, lawyers, politicians and activists alike. It is not alone in following this bloody pattern, however, as Zambian opposition frequently experience intimidation by government forces and suffers unlawful arrests.

The prominent civil society activist Laura Miti spoke last week with The Resistance Bureau on her two experiences of unlawful arrest at the hands of the government. She encouraged the international community to continuously apply pressure on governments to follow human rights laws, and for journalists to relentlessly speak truth to power.