BULAWAYO – Police have stepped up efforts to stop the September 29 public premiere of a documentary on Gukurahundi.

On Wednesday, police told organisers of the Intwasa Arts Festival that the documentary had not been cleared by the Censorship Board.

Raisedon Baya, one of the organisers of the festival which kicked off in Bulawayo this week, was summoned by police to a meeting where he was told they may not screen the film by journalist, Zenzele Ndebele.

Baya said on Twitter: “Back from CID, Law and Order. The long and short of it is that they have serious interest in @zenzele’s Gukurahundi documentary. They are worried about its content. They said the documentary was not cleared by Censorship Board. Our realities and experiences in 2018.”

Police have previously summoned Ndebele and requested a copy of the documentary, but he declined to turn it over.

Now organisers fear there are genuine efforts to stop it from being screened.

Baya said Intwasa Arts Festival was a “platform for democratisation of culture and cultural expression; celebrating artistic freedom and freedom of expression and promoting tolerance.”

“The festival has no business in censoring artists. In fact it encourages dialogue and more,” he said.

Gukurahundi, the 1980s killing of 20,000 mainly minority Ndebele people in south-western Zimbabwe remains a sensitive subject for those in power, who were key participants in the massacre.

Literature and films on the killings is suppressed, including a report of the government’s own Chihambakwe Commission of Inquiry conducted in 1985.