Zimbabwe blocks Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter amid crackdown
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Zimbabwe has blocked Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp messaging app amid a crackdown on days of violent protests.
A coalition of local human rights groups says at least 12 people have been killed and many more beaten and tortured by security forces this week.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum accused the authorities of cutting off the internet “to mask the massive human rights violations”.
The protests were sparked on Monday by a sharp rise in the price of fuel.
The government has blamed the opposition and political rights groups for the protests, which has seen riot police clashing with protesters in the capital, Harare, and the southern city of Bulawayo after they lit fires and blocked roads using rocks.
There has been looting and some businesses and schools in the two cities have been forced to close. Soldiers are guarding petrol stations, where there are still long queues of motorists looking for petrol.
The UN has called on the government to halt the “excessive use of force” by security forces including firing live ammunition, and allegations of night-time door-to-door searches and beatings.
“Doctors’ associations say more than 60 people were treated in hospital for gunshot wounds, this is not way to react to the expression of economic grievances by the population,” Reuters news agency quotes UN human rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani as saying.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said it had recorded at least 844 human rights violations in all.
On Thursday, prominent activist Evan Mawarire, who called for a stay-at-home protest on social media, was charged with subverting the government, a crime which carries up to 20 years in jail. He gained fame as a figurehead of the #ThisFlag protests against the former president, Robert Mugabe, in 2016.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the rise was aimed at tackling shortages caused by an increase in fuel use and “rampant” illegal trading.
But many Zimbabweans – worn down by years of economic hardship – suddenly found they could not even afford the bus fare to work.
-BBC
ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson
[email protected] An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.
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