HARARE – Chitungwiza Residents Trust director Alice Kuvheya was on Monday booked on charges of inciting public violence in a June 2 video in which she appears accusing the local authority of colluding with police to kick out informal traders from their premises.
Kuvheya’s arrest came after she successfully blocked demolitions of informal businesses in Chitungwiza through a court action filed by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR).
Harare provincial development coordinator Tafadzwa Muguti is alleged to have threatened residents’ associations that resisted the removals with unspecified action.
Kuvheya was detained at St Mary’s Police Station around 2:30PM after presenting herself in the presence of her attorneys before being transferred to Harare Central Station around 3:00PM.
Sources said Harare Central CID Law and Order officers spent more than three hours playing a 53-second video in search of smoking-gun evidence to nail the activist but found none to warrant an incitement to commit public violence charge.
In the footage, Kuvheya appears saying: “According to some councilors we spoke to, they had not set down or had a resolution to remove informal traders from their areas of business.
“We are very disappointed as residents and we are going to fight on because how can Chitungwiza municipality engage ZRP to remove informal traders instead of engaging ZRP to arrest land barons.”
She adds: “Now we don’t have a vibrant industry, we are all informal traders here in Chitungwiza, we rely on selling, we are tired of their threats. We are tired as ratepayers of having funds being misappropriated when there is zero service delivery.”
After being transferred back to St Mary’s, Kuvheya was later released into the custody of her lawyer Freddy Masarirevu of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human rights and was told to return on Tuesday for a warned and cautioned statement.
