Chronicle EditorNyore Madzianike Manicaland Bureau
Traditional leaders in Manicaland have raised concern over the failure by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) to deal with people denigrating President Mugabe through social media, violating his rights in the process.
The traditional leaders felt ZHRC should have intervened and made recommendations that deal with people abusing the President on social media. Raising the concern on behalf of other chiefs during a stakeholders engagement organised by ZHRC in Mutare on Tuesday in conjunction with Mutare Rural District Council, Chief Zimunya said as a human rights watchdog, ZHRC was failing to help the situation.
“There are many burning questions that I would like to raise on behalf of other traditional leaders. We are concerned as traditional leaders about what happens on social media,” he said.
“People and sometimes the press denigrate His Excellency and to us that is lack of respect. It shows that there are rights, which are being violated. What are you doing about it as the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission?” Chief Zimunya expressed doubts over ZHRC’s ability to deal with cases of human rights abuse in the province when they failed to deal with issues happening close to them in Harare.
“These are complaints, which are coming from Harare where you are located. Will you be able to deal with complaints from remote areas?” he asked ZHRC chief human rights officer Ms Karukai Ratsauka said it was difficult to deal with such cases since the country was yet to adopt legislation that dealt with social media abuses.
“The chief’s question is the most difficult to tackle, as it involves the President Like I indicated before, we are an independent organisation. It becomes difficult when there is no legislation that deals with such matters, for example, in the case of Mawarire, he sometimes gets arrested and is later released. Sometimes it is because we do not have legislation that deals with social media that has been adopted by the Government,” she said.
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