Amnesty International Regional Director for Southern Africa Deprose Muchena, has urged President Emmerson Mnangagwa to honour his promises to find missing activist Itai Dzamara who was allegedly abducted by State security agents.
Mnangagwa made the commitment to find Dzamara at the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2016 while he was Vice President. Said Muchena:
As Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa personally announced on behalf of the Zimbabwe government that they are actively investigating the disappearance of Itai Dzamara. Yet three months since his inauguration as President, we are all still in the dark. Dzamara’s family and the world, need to know that no stone is being left unturned in the pursuit of justice for Itai.
Itai Dzamara was a well-known critic of former president Robert Mugabe’s government. He publicly called for Mugabe to resign for what he said was his failure to manage the country’s failing economy. He was abducted on 9 March 2015 by five unidentified men while he was at a barber shop in the Glen View suburb of Harare. On Saturday 7 March, before his abduction, he had addressed a rally in the capital Harare where he called for mass action to address the deteriorating economic conditions in Zimbabwe.