HARARE – The Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) has blamed “hate and hate speech” for the brutal murder of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) activist Moreblessing Ali, whose body was found dumped in a pit after it was dismembered and stuffed in a sack.

Ali disappeared outside a bar in Nyatsime on May 24 but her body was not found until June 11 in Beatrice – some 10km from where she was abducted.

In a rare pastoral letter, the ZCC said Ali’s murder was “callous and cruel” as it warned that “the more frequent the cases of murder, the more murder and shedding of blood becomes normalised.”

The CCC has blamed Zanu PF for Ali’s abduction and murder. Her alleged fugitive killer Pios Jamba is the half-brother of Simba Chisango, Zanu PF’s district chairman in Nyatsime, a peri-urban neighbourhood located between Chitungwiza and Beatrice.

“The church is deeply concerned by the level of hate and the hate speech that has developed in our nation that forms a reservoir out of which these terrible killings emerge,” the ZCC said.

“The nation acquires a bad name where lives of individuals are not valued through the normalisation of murder.”

The ZCC pastoral letter skirted assigning political blame for Ali’s murder as it made reference to other recent killings, including the more-than-a-dozen victims of serial killer Bright Zhantali.

“Although not all the murders are politically motivated,” the ZCC said, “the church worries that there are so many murders just some few months before a potentially violent 2023 election environment.”

It added: “The church calls upon the government, political parties and community leaders at all levels of society to desist from instigating violence in their public and private utterances but rather to promote peace and tolerance among their constituencies.

“The church calls on the Zimbabwe Republic Police to handle cases of human disappearances, distress calls and cases of violent conflict with a sense of urgency and in ways that do not compromise the dignity of victims.”

The ZCC is a grouping of more than a dozen churches including Anglican, Lutheran, Salvation Army, Presbyterian and Methodist.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Zimbabwean police and the government “must not leave any stone unturned in the investigation of this case and ensure that suspected perpetrators are held accountable.”

“Abductions are being fueled by impunity of perpetrators. Authorities must do more to ensure Zimbabwe breaks this cycle of killings and abductions and impunity associated with it. Authorities must ensure access to justice and effective remedies for victims and their families,” the international human rights advocacy group said on Monday.