According to reports in Zimbabwean newspapers, President Robert G. Mugabe has placed between 15 and 64 human rights activists and critics on a list of people who are banned from travelling outside the country because they allegedly threaten the country’s national interests.

NewZimbabwe.com (Dec. 6, 2005) says a memo has been sent to all exit points and border posts instructing immigration officials to seize the passports of people on the travel ban list.

According to the paper, immigration officials at some of the country’s border posts, including the Harare International Airport, confirmed the names of the people on the list. The sources also revealed that they are under orders to seize the passports of anyone on the list “with immediate effect” if they try to either leave or enter the country.

Human rights lawyers, Beatrice Mtetwa and Gabriel Shumba. Shumba is currently living in exile in South Africa and is suing the government of Zimbabwe for torture before an African Human Rights tribunal in the Gambia are on the list .

The ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs are deliberating draft regulations that will require Zimbabweans to obtain exit visas to travel outside the country.

Critics say the new passport laws are aimed at immobilizing human rights activists and opposition leaders in order to prevent them from highlighting the government’s repressiveness to the world. The laws have been described as a serious and unacceptable assault on people’s freedom of movement.

The seizure of passports is seen as marking the resurfacing of a society-wide campaign of repression as social and economic conditions deteriorate.

Zimbabwe, reeling from a deep political and economic crisis, has a long record of human rights abuses.

President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu (PF) party recommended a clampdown on western-sponsored groups hostile to its regime at the end of its annual conference during the weekend.

The resolution urged security forces to compile a list of people whose passports should be seized for allegedly undermining the interests of the state.

Others on the list of persons whose passports should be taken include SA-based Zimbabweans such as telecoms mogul Strive Masiyiwa, journalist Basildon Peta, human rights lawyer Gabriel Shumba and former editors of the banned Daily News, Geoff Nyarota and Nqobile Nyathi.

Media lawyer Beatrice Mthethwa, who holds a Swazi passport, human rights lawyer Brian Kagoro and civic activist Raymond Majongwe are also on the list.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The travel ban follows an amendment to the constitution, ratified in September, that allows the government to restrict the right to freedom of movement by denying a passport to anyone wishing to travel outside the country “where it is feared or believed or known that the Zimbabwean in question will, during his or her travel, harm the national interest or defense interest or economic interest of the State.”

Zimbabwe’s constitution has been amended 17 times in the past 25 years by the ruling Zanu-PF government, the most notable amendment being the abolition of the prime minister’s position, which led to the creation of an executive presidency in 1987.

RECOMMENDED ACTION : Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in Russian, English or your own language :

  reminding the authorities of their obligation to respect international law by allowing all Zimbabweans citizens to travel freely in and out of the country and by respecting their legitimate rights to freedom of opinion and expression

  reminding the authorities to comply with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights , to which Zimbabwe voluntarily became party in May 1991, and especially Articles 12(2), 12(4), 19(1) and 19(2) which require, respectively, that:

Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.

No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.

Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

APPEALS TO :

President

Office of the President

Private Bag 7700

Causeway

Harare

Zimbabwe

Fax no: 00 263 4 708 820/708 557

Download and use the letter

of the Law Society of England and Wales.(With kind permission of Mrs Laura Magnus)

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.