In Zimbabwe citizens have no right to protest. Legislation disallows gatherings of groups of 4 people or more. An organisation which consistently challenges this repressive legislation is Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA). Just recently members of WOZA gathered to state that grassroots voices must be included in any mediation or talks concerning the crisis in Zimbabwe. Their gathering was disrupted by the authorities and several members of WOZA were assaulted. Below I include photographic evidence of a woman who was beaten with batons.
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Little support from your close neighbour
As a South African human rights activist I am even more embarrassed that we failed to do anything significant around International Torture Day when such terrible things are happening right over our border. While many SA organizations and individuals are offering a great deal of support to refugees from Zimbabwe, we are not doing enough to bring political pressure to bear against the Mugabe regime. We do a lot of complaining about the quiet diplomacy of our government but as civil society we certainly have not done enough.
On a more positive note ... congratulations to the Zimbabwean bloggers who are managing to get the truth out. Some of those blogs have been picked up by the South African print media and "broadcast" on to a much larger local audience.