Police yet to clear MDC-T demo

Upenyu Chaota

MASVINGO – The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) is yet to clear the Morgan Tsvangirai led Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) demonstration against worsening economic conditions in the country slated for Masvingo on August 3, 2016, though the party submitted the clearance application weeks ago.

MDC-T Masvingo provincial chairperson James Gumbi said they are yet to get response from the police and they have begun to suspect that the law enforcers were dragging feet on the matter.

“We do not know why the police is taking long to process our application. We applied to hold peaceful demonstrations and they urged us to make certain corrections on the application which we did immediately. Since then, we haven’t heard from them,” said Gumbi.

“We filed our application on July 15, 2016, but we are yet to get the response and the police is strangely quiet,” he added.

 The police have been on high alert since the beginning of July after the country was hit by a wave of protests calling for President Mugabe and his administration to resign.

ZANU PF youth have since threatened to mercilessly deal with protesters describing Pastor Evan mawarire of the #This Flag Movement a nonentity being used by the west to push for regime change in the country.

Gumbi said they are not moved by ZANU PF threats and insisted that the utterances will not stop them from exercising their constitutional right.

“We are not worried at all by the threats made by ZANU PF’s misguided youth. They do not have the power to deal with anyone because they are not the law. Citizens have the right to exercise their right through peaceful demonstrations which is what we are doing,” Gumbi said.news