{"id":25509,"date":"2022-02-26T15:41:54","date_gmt":"2022-02-26T15:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?p=25509"},"modified":"2022-02-26T15:41:54","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T15:41:54","slug":"zimbabwe-police-break-up-opposition-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2022\/25509\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe police break up opposition rally"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HARARE (National Times) &#8211; Police on Saturday fired tear gas and used batons to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters in Zimbabwe s western town of Gokwe at a rally for next month s local and parliamentary by-elections.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) activists were injured after being beaten by baton-wielding police, party spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere told AFP.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We condemn the regime s abuse of state machinery to stifle the CCC&#8221;, Mahere said, using the new name of the former MDC Alliance.<\/p>\n<p>She insisted the party had &#8220;lawfully obtained police clearance for our rally&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In blocking the event, the police argued they did not have enough &#8220;manpower&#8221; to handle it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No cogent explanation has been given for why our rallies are banned but (President) Mr (Emerson) Mnangagwa s rallies are allowed to proceed,&#8221; Mahere said.<\/p>\n<p>A high court judge had on Saturday ruled the rally could go ahead as scheduled.<\/p>\n<p>Online video footage shows police violently breaking up the event,in Gokwe, more than 300 kilometres (190 miles) west of the capital,<\/p>\n<p>A ruling Zanu PF party rally went ahead Saturday in Kwekwe, about 140 kms from Gokwe, without police intervention.<\/p>\n<p>More than 80 CCC activists were arrested last week for campaigning in the city of Masvingo and are still in custody.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, former finance minister and CCC vice president Tendai Biti was also detained for several hours while meeting voters in Harare.<\/p>\n<p>Critics accuse Mnangagwa, who took power in 2017 after Robert Mugabe ruled for 37 years, of muzzling dissidents and the opposition has voiced concern that election will not be credible.<\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe will vote to fill 133 local and parliamentary seats on March 26, in what is seen as a dress rehearsal for general elections in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HARARE (National Times) &#8211; Police on Saturday fired tear gas and used batons to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters in Zimbabwe s western town of Gokwe at a rally for next month s local and parliamentary by-elections. Dozens of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) activists were injured after being beaten by baton-wielding police, party spokesperson [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Zimbabwe police break up opposition rally - Nation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2022\/25509\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zimbabwe police break up opposition rally - Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"HARARE (National Times) &#8211; Police on Saturday fired tear gas and used batons to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters in Zimbabwe s western town of Gokwe at a rally for next month s local and parliamentary by-elections. 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