MDC Alliance Youth Assembly has asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to terminate Kirsty Coventry’s membership after it headlined that she grabbed former President Robert Mugabe’s nephew Robert Zhuwao’s farm, New Zimbabwe reports.
The youth assembly also called on the IOC to examine how Coventry has been part of the government violating human rights in Zimbabwe. The development came to light in a statement released by MDC Youth Assembly Chairperson Obey Sithole. Sithole’s statement reads in part:
We urge the IOC Advisory Committee on Human Rights and IOC Ethics Committee to revoke the status of Ms. Kirsty Coventry as an International Olympic Committee member due to her participation in the continued brutalisation and abuse of the Zimbabwean and the widespread human rights abuses carried out by the government which Ms Coventry is an essential component.
Revoke the status of Ms Coventry as an IOC member due to her ongoing enforced eviction and illegal expropriation of land in Zimbabwe which violates basic human and international rights. Examine the extent to which IOC member Kirsty Coventry has been complicit in the participation in human rights violations in Zimbabwe
The MDC Youth Assembly wishes to alert the IOC to the existence of serious risks of human rights abuses surrounding IOC member Ms Kirsty Coventry and it is our wish that the relevant authorities take up the issues with seriousness and gravitas human rights violations deserve.
Kirsty who became a cabinet minister in 2018 has been an IOC member since 2013.
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