The Wardman Wire

You are browsing the archives of sokwanele.

In Zimbabwe the level of Civil Liberties and Political Freedom - as assessed by the Freedom House organisation - have gone below those recorded in the 1970s under white minority rule. Click through for the full graph.

This is not to defend the situation back then, which was appalling - but does highlght out how bad things have become. The common factor is perhaps that there is a Dictator who perceives himself to be under serious threat. That highlights the need for a government that is put in by the people, and can also be removed by the people if it proves untrustworthy.

via Sokwanele.

We have added the details for 66 murders to the political violence map. This figure falls short of the last confirmed figure we had last week, which was that 85 people have been killed in the violence so far.

We have more to add.

I have nothing add, either.

The BBC has published evidence that abuses, beatings, intimidation and undermining of the democratic process are being co-ordinated in Zimbabwe by the police and army (vua Paul Canning).

It is possible to keep track of what is happening on the ground via Net Feeds provided by various civil liberties bodies. This is an updated version of a Wardman Wire post “Scrutinise the Zimbabwe Elections using Twitter and Flickr: Sokwanele” from a few days ago.

The situation appears to be getting worse, so please do what you can to keep the spotlight on it.

Key Points

There are a number of organisations and resources listed here. This is a summary.

• Map of incidents: Sokwanele Map
• Most frequent updates: Sokwanele Blog, RSS Feed, Twitter. Women and Men of Zimbabwe.
• Photo feed: Sokwanele photo feed (on Wardman Wire blog front page).
• Video: Eyes on Zimbabwe
• Human Rights/Free Media: Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Zimbabwe Human NGO Rights Forum

I have been running a Flick-R photo feed about abuse and violence meted out by Robert Mugabe’s followers and thugs to those opposing his regime in the elections in Zimbabwe for several weeks, from the Zimbabwe Civic Action Support Group.

There is also a Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/sokwanele which is updated from time to time. Here are the entriues since it was launched in late May (read from the bottom). Harrowing.

Why not carry the Photo feed (if your readers can stomach it) or the Twitter feed on your blog. If you need to know how, drop a comment in the box, and I will do a “Howto” article. The elections in Zimbabwe are on June 27th, so it would be a good boost to scrutiny and awareness if a number of bloggers did this.