MDC-T Leader, Douglas Mwonzora, Visits Jailed Sikhala
MDC-T leader Douglas Mwonzora on Saturday, 15 October 2022, visited MDC Alliance MP, Job Sikhala, and over a dozen CCC activists who have been in pre-trial detention for over 100 days.
Sikhala is being held at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on allegations of inciting violence.
Sikhala, Chitungwiza North MP, Godfrey Sithole, and the other CCC activists from Nyatsime were arrested on 14 June 2022 after attending the funeral of political activist Moreblessing Ali.
Ali was brutally murdered and her remains were dumped in a disused well and were only discovered three weeks after she had gone missing.
In a statement, MDC-T spokesperson Witness Dube said the continued incarceration of Sikhala and the Nyatsime CCC activists infringes on their right to freedom. Said, Dube:
Today President Douglas Mwonzora and the MDC leadership visited Honorable Job Sikhala and the Nyatsime 16 at Chikurubi Maximum Prison, where they are on remand facing charges of inciting violence.
The MDC is a social democratic party guided by universal values of freedom, justice and solidarity, firmly believing in Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law.
As concerned Zimbabweans, we believe that Honorable Sikhala and the Nyatsime 16 are entitled to evenhandedness and their continued incarceration infringes on the fundamental rights to justice, which in the circumstances has been delayed.
We are concerned for Honorable Sikhala and the Nyatsime 16 as we would for any other Zimbabwean.
The Leader of Government Business in Parliament, Ziyambi Ziyambi, who is also Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, recently told Senators that Sikhala has been denied bail by the courts because he allegedly violated past bail conditions in the past.
Sikhala is said to have been arrested 67 times but has no single conviction.
