On 1 June 2008, Tafadzwa Meda was driving his father's lorry through Nyamuyaruka Business Centre in Mudzi when a truck carrying ZANU-PF militia pulled in behind him, forcing him to flee.
As he tried to escape, one of the pursuers opened fire, sending a bullet into his leg.
Bleeding heavily, Meda drove until he could go no further, abandoned the lorry and crawled into nearby scrub, hoping those hunting him had lost his trail. Their search yielded nothing, so they set the vehicle ablaze. The flames lit the surrounding darkness and revealed where he lay.
Accusing him of transporting MDC supporters, the militia hauled him from his hiding place, bundled him into their truck and drove him to Broken Bridge on the Nyandire River.
There, one of them stepped forward and shot him at close range, after which they dumped his body beneath the bridge and drove away.
In Zimbabwe, exercising his democratic rights became a death sentence.
ZANU-PF murdered Tafadzwa Meda.
Yet another sad chapter of the state - labour relations in Zimbabwe
The state is being used by cowards who know they can not win trade union elections to suppress voices that do not agree with them
They openly boast that they can order state agents to harm fellow workers for no reason
These young @ZctuZimbabwe cadres are innocent they just raised their voices in their union using the union constitution
At about 4pm on 28 January 2002, 26-year-old MDC member Tichaona Katsamudanga walked out of Hatcliffe Clinic in northern Harare when a Mazda 323 pulled up beside him.
The men inside were ZANU-PF militia.
They bundled Katsamudanga into the vehicle and drove him to a ZANU-PF base in Hatcliffe, where they demanded to know where MDC meetings were being held and the identities of the party's local officials.
When he refused to give them the information they wanted, the torture began.
While the Mazda's engine revved, the attackers attached cables from the vehicle's battery to his inner thighs and beneath his fingernails, sending electric shocks through his body. They squeezed his diaphragm until he struggled to breathe before forcing him to swallow a herbal mixture and releasing him.
Doctors examined him the following day. They found him profoundly ill, more than ten per cent dehydrated, slightly disorientated and unable to straighten his legs because of severe spasms in his thigh muscles. He was rushed to a high-care unit suffering from a severe electrolyte imbalance caused by uncontrollable diarrhoea.
Katsamudanga fought for another week.
On 5 February 2002, he died at Avenues Clinic.
His family deserves justice.
Zimbabwe awaits justice.
ZANU-PF murdered Tichaona Katsamudanga.
On 24 November 2001, six Zimbabwe National Army soldiers attacked 23-year-old University of Zimbabwe student Lameck Chemvura aboard a passenger train travelling from Harare to Mutare, accusing him of supporting the MDC.
They closed in around Chemvura, trapping him inside the crowded railway carriage before unleashing a relentless barrage of punches and booted kicks while petrified passengers looked on helplessly.
The assault continued through the coach until one of the soldiers seized Chemvura by the throat, forced him onto the floor and strangled him while pinning his body beneath his weight.
By the time the soldier loosened his grip, Chemvura was dead.
They then lifted his body, dragged it to the train door and threw it onto the railway tracks near Nyazura.
The 23-year-old had boarded as a promising university student.
He returned to his family in a coffin.
ZANU-PF's soldiers murdered Lameck Chemvura.
On 7 June 2008, less than three weeks before Zimbabwe's presidential run-off, ZANU-PF supporters and state agents descended on the home of MDC supporter Martha Tembedza in Village 17 of the Two Boy Resettlement Area, Svosve, Marondera East.
They beat Martha until her body stopped moving.
Convinced she was dead, the attackers dragged her to a nearby dam and threw her into the water, leaving her to disappear beneath the surface.
But death had not yet taken her.
When rescuers pulled her from the dam, she was still alive. Several weeks in hospital followed, each one a struggle to survive, until the injuries inflicted that day finally claimed her life on 23 August 2008.
Her only "crime" was exercising her constitutional rights and supporting Zimbabwe's democratic opposition.
Martha Tembedza deserved justice.
Her family still awaits justice.
ZANU-PF murdered Martha Tembedza.
At about 6.30 pm on 29 May 2008, MDC Harare provincial elections director Tichanzii Gandanga was still working in his city centre office when four ZANU-PF militia burst through the door, pressed a pistol against him and forced him into a waiting vehicle.
They pulled a black bag over his head as the vehicle sped through the darkness, demanding to know where Morgan Tsvangirai was hiding, who was training MDC guerrillas and who was financing the opposition, punctuating every answer they disliked with blows from a pistol butt while a religious song blared through the speakers.
When the vehicle finally stopped, they stripped Gandanga naked, lashed him with lengths of tyre rubber, beat him with tree branches and kicked him until he could no longer stand.
Believing it was his only chance of survival, Gandanga let his body go limp and feigned unconsciousness.
Satisfied they had broken him, the attackers dragged him into the middle of the road and stepped aside as an engine roared into life.
The vehicle rolled over both his legs, reversed and crushed them again, then turned back for another pass.
Certain the next impact would kill him, Gandanga closed his eyes and waited for death.
The wheels tore across his shattered legs instead as the vehicle disappeared into the darkness.
Alone, naked and bleeding, he dragged himself from the road, snapped a branch from a nearby tree to use as a crutch and struggled back towards passing traffic, where three motorists drove past before a truck driver finally stopped and carried him to safety.
His only "crime" was helping organise Zimbabwe's democratic opposition.
The men who tried to kill Tichanzii Gandanga remain free, unpunished and dangerous.
EFF statement on the extension of Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa's term of office
—The EFF believes that the people of Zimbabwe cannot be held hostage indefinitely by a governing party. True revolutionaries understand that political power belongs to the people and that leadership is exercised on their behalf, not over them. Any government that fears returning to the people for a fresh democratic mandate is one that is certain it has lost the will of the people and should face the consequences or commit to better leadership.
#BREAKING: ED has violated the constitution of Zimbabwe by signing CAB3 into law today. After signing he says whoever is not happy must go and sleep. In summary he is saying go to hell if you are not happy. The people of Zimbabwe must be treated with respect.
We now have CAA3. In the words of Zvobgo, it is “the most calculated and deliberate attack on our liberties.” Its promulgation opens the door to, and indeed ushers in, another wave of challenges. These challenges will be pursued in many ways. We shall not abdicate. We shall not be cowed. When the motherland calls on men and women to stand up and be counted, we shall be such men and women. Our contract cannot be rewritten by a few. Our destiny cannot be determined by coin. We shall fall only by natural causes, not by the devices of a few corrupt men. So help us God.
🔸Today is a dark, dark day for our nation. A black cloud hangs over us. Our democracy has been in a coma for years but today, it breathes its last. Mourn we must. Tragedy, thy name is Zimbabwe.
We need new leaders.🇿🇼
Abigail Chiroto's murder became another symbol of Zimbabwe's culture of impunity. Despite the brutality of the crime, eighteen years later no one has ever been convicted, sending the message that ZANU-PF leaders, perpetrators and enforcers remain above the law.
On 7 May 2008, at Juru Growth Point in Mashonaland East, twelve ZANU-PF militia ambushed four MDC members travelling by car, seizing Better Chokururama, Godfrey Kauzani and Ken Nyevhe while a fourth man escaped.
The three men were abducted and taken to an unknown location.
Four days later, Chokururama's body was found in a river near Chikwaka bearing gunshot and knife wounds.
Six days after that, villagers in the farming district of Goromonzi discovered the bodies of Kauzani and Nyevhe. Like Chokururama, they had been beaten, tortured and killed.
Their only "crime" was supporting Zimbabwe's democratic opposition.
Their families, and all Zimbabweans, still await justice.
ZANU-PF murdered Better Chokururama, Godfrey Kauzani and Ken Nyevhe.
On the night of 6 June 2008, a truck carrying armed ZANU-PF militia pulled into a homestead on the eastern outskirts of Harare, searching for MDC councillor Brian Chimova, but when they failed to find him, they turned their violence against his family.
Inside the house was his pregnant wife, Pamela Pasvani, his six-year-old son, Nyasha Mashoko, his younger brother and his sixty-one-year-old mother, Juliet Mashoko, none of whom had committed any crime beyond belonging to the family of an opposition politician.
The militia beat Juliet so savagely with sticks and heavy logs that they fractured one of her legs before dragging Pamela, Nyasha and Brian's younger brother into a room, locking the door and hurling a petrol bomb inside, transforming the family home into an inferno from which there was almost no escape.
Juliet, lying helpless with her broken leg, could do nothing except listen as her daughter-in-law and grandson screamed from inside the burning house.
Six-year-old Nyasha died in the flames.
Pamela was pulled from the burning house with burns covering almost her entire body and rushed to Harare Hospital, where doctors fought to save her life, but the injuries were too severe and she died soon afterwards, taking her unborn child with her.
ZANU-PF militia unleashed a nationwide campaign of murder, torture and arson after the March 2008 elections, turning homes into killing grounds and entire families into targets in a determined effort to crush the opposition MDC.
ZANU-PF murdered Pamela Pasvani, her six-year-old son Nyasha Mashoko and her unborn child to stay in power.
Zimbabwe must bring Pamela Pasvani's killers to justice.
They are spiteful when they feel invincible. The painful irony in this speech is impossible to ignore. As long as the amendment was directed at us and sought to undermine our interests you were ok with it. Now we must rally behind you because the very same amendment has caused you personal injury? No Sir, that’s not how it’s done. Our principles must be consistent and Zimbabwe must always come first. In the meantime a big NO to CAB3 but not in defence of Sokostina.