Zimbabwean politician and former CCC activist , Job Sikhala on Wednesday revealed to the annual Geneva Summit, how discussing Zimbabwe’s human rights situation could land him back in prison as per dictates of the country’s Patriotic Act.
“Under that law, I am deemed to be committing a crime just by talking to you,” he said.
Addressing the United Nations opening of the Geneva Summit on Human Rights and Democracy where he was invited as one of this year’s speakers, Sikhala who spent 595 days in pretrial detention, narrated his experience at the hands of the government.
Sikhala told delegates that his arrest was politically motivated and that it was a ploy to get him out of the way as Zanu PF prepared to manipulate the August 2023 general polls.
“The regime piled cases against me during the period of my incarceration. I faced five trials and was convicted twice with one being on a law that does not even exist.
“They denied me food and visits from friends, colleagues and family.”
Added Sikhala: “In July 2023 the regime passed the Patriotic Act, a new repressive legislation targeting free speech and association.
“It is no wonder why millions of Zimbabweans have fled abroad in fear of persecution.”
The Patriotic Act is an amendment of the “equally repressive” Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act, commonly referred to as the CODE.
The act bars anyone from “wilfully injuring the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe,” a phrase whose interpretation has worried civil society, human and political activists.
Punishment includes loss of citizenship, denial of the right to vote and the d3ath penalty.
“The signing of the Patriotic Bill into an Act by the President is a grave att@ck on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association,” said Khanyo Farisè, Amnesty International’s Deputy Research Director for Southern Africa last July.
Source NewZimbabwe
