SW Radio Africa (London)
Violet Gonda
30 October 2008
South African women's rights activists, feminists and students are stepping up pressure on their government and parliamentarians to speak out about the increasing repression in Zimbabwe. Women's groups in Johannesburg and Cape Town coordinated solidarity actions in support of detained WOZA leaders Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu.
Rhodes University students in Grahamstown held a half hour solidarity sit-in on Thursday calling for the release of the outspoken Women of Zimbabwe Arise pair and an end to human rights violations in Zimbabwe.
The action comes in the wake of growing activism by South African civil rights groups. On Tuesday, women activists in Cape Town held a symbolic march calling on their government to put pressure on the authorities in Zimbabwe to release the WOZA leaders, and to provide access to food to all Zimbabweans and to form a proper power sharing government.
Women's groups had gathered in Johannesburg also on Tuesday to mobilise support for the detained WOZA leaders and also to condemn the rights abuses taking place in Zimbabwe.
Sipho Mthathi from the Feminist Collective said: "We cannot watch while our sisters are being unlawfully arrested by a regime that is playing a duplicitous role because on the one hand the Mugabe regime is saying they are negotiating and ceasing all hostilities to make sure that a new government is in place and yet they continue to repress and deny people freedom of expression."
WOZA accuses the judiciary in Zimbabwe of working in cohorts with the state machinery by deliberately delaying a bail ruling of their leaders, who had been unjustly detained during a peaceful protest. The pair have been in prison since their detention on October 16th.
The SA women activists urged their president to play a role in intensifying SADC pressure on Zimbabwean leaders to resolve the political stalemate and said the silence of South African women parliamentarians and other women in power, in the face of massive injustices and suffering particularly by Zimbabwe women, is unacceptable.
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Jenni ,great people are forged on the anvil of suffering.The time has come, that when in times of greatest need "quote"..ordinary people do extraordinary things.Your support is growing,look out Morgan ,here comes your new vice president! ..Maybe?