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Churches condemn restrictions on public gatherings in Zimbabwe
2002-056-3
3/6/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
A meeting of representatives of 15 churches in Bulawayo--Zimbabwe's second city--has condemned a new law which, among other things, restricts freedom of assembly for churches and civic organizations.
The meeting also called on Zimbabwe's two main political parties to desist from violence in the run-up to presidential elections in March, in which President Robert Mugabe is facing the stiffest challenge in his 22-year rule.
A statement issued after the meeting on February 20 condemned the new Public Order and Security Act. The act bans non-authorized public gatherings, including religious gatherings except worship services.
'The state has no right to proscribe our prayers and to prevent us from holding peaceful gatherings,' the churches said in their statement.
'On behalf of our congregations, we abhor the fact that we now have to seek permission from the state to hold prayer meetings in public,' they said. 'We are prepared to accept the consequences while the world watches,' they added in comments suggesting that they were prepared to defy the law.
The police have been accused of bias in applying the new law. On February 24, the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the police had invoked sections of the new law to ban at least 64 campaign rallies the MDC intended to hold.
However, President Mugabe's party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) has been able to hold its rallies apparently without any restrictions.
The denominations represented at the Bulawayo meeting included the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Apostolic Faith, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches.
Calling on political parties to desist from violence in the run-up to the country's presidential election, they said that political violence had claimed at least 100 lives and displaced at least 60,000 families in the country in the past two years.
'Violence is unacceptable and un-Christian and must stop immediately,' they said. 'We deplore, in the strongest terms, the idea that it is acceptable to assault, rape, torture, harass and intimidate peaceful people going about their legitimate daily business.'
They criticized the state-controlled media's portrayal of some church leaders as puppets of foreign governments and institutions 'as if as Zimbabweans we are incapable of thinking for ourselves.'
This was an apparent reference to a series of articles in the Chronicle newspaper attacking Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo.
The archbishop has been blamed publicly by President Mugabe for being behind the defeat of Zanu-PF in the Matabeleland province in the June 2000 parliamentary elections.
Earlier this month, 11 church leaders holding a peace march in Bulawayo were arrested and held for three days on charges of breaching sections of the Public Order and Security Act. They were released on bail on February 18 by a magistrate's court in the city.
Noel Scott, an Anglican priest and one of the organisers of the 'Pray and Walk' march, was ordered to surrender his passport.
If convicted, the clergymen face up to six months' imprisonment or a Z$10,000 fine or both.
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