Priority Cases
WOZA- JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED
 Members of WOZA © AP |
The activists of the human rights organization Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) know the price of freedom. For organizing peaceful demonstrations to protest the worsening social, economic and human rights situation in Zimbabwe, WOZA members have been repeatedly harassed, intimidated, beaten and jailed by authorities.
For years, government officials in Zimbabwe have misused the law to arbitrarily arrest and detain perceived critics of the ruling party such as WOZA. Government repression of human rights defenders, trade unionists, lawyers, journalists and opposition activists was particularly brutal in the run up to the parliamentary and presidential elections in March and June 2008.
Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu continue to live under the threat of trial and imprisonment since their arrest on charges of disturbing the peace on October 16, 2008. On that day, hundreds of WOZA members demonstrated in Bulawayo in support of the government declaring a national emergency and distributing food aid to the nation's hungry citizens. Williams and Mahlangu were arrested along with seven other WOZA members; the seven were released after a few hours in jail but the two WOZA leaders spent three weeks in horrible prison conditions before bail was granted. Their lawyers immediately filed a case before the Supreme Court arguing the unconstitutionality of their arrest. The Court heard arguments this June and announced that it would issue a decision later that month, but no written opinion has yet been issued. This lack of action leaves Jenni and Magodonga in legal limbo, though the state is willing to prosecute them as soon as it is able to do so.
Williams and Mahlangu appeared before the Magistrate's Court in Bulawayo on October 14, 2009. The trial was once again continued until December 2009, pending the Supreme Court issuance of its written opinion on the constitutionality of their arrests. Meanwhile, Jenni and Magodonga will continue to live under the threat of detention in Zimbabwe's notoriously filthy, cold, overcrowded, and disease-ridden prisons.
At the one year anniversary of their arrests, it is time to remind the government of Zimbabwe that we have not forgotten these two courageous human rights defenders.
» By contacting the Zimbabwe Embassy in the United States, we spread the message that "justice delayed is justice denied." It is past time to drop all of the charges against Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu.
