At the close of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) on Saturday, August 3, a mob comprising mainly University of Zimbabwe students “ransacked” a stand at which a group representing Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) exhibited its literature. A journalist who claims to have been present at the time and witnessed the incident, said, […]
At the close of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) on Saturday,
August 3, a mob comprising mainly University of Zimbabwe students
“ransacked” a stand at which a group representing Gays and Lesbians of
Zimbabwe (GALZ) exhibited its literature. A journalist who claims to have
been present at the time and witnessed the incident, said, the mob, among
them university students, “ransacked the GALZ stand, tore up and carried
away literature found on display.” The journalist who asked for anonymity
said that “it appears this was a state-organised action to deliberately
intimidate and prevent GALZ from exhibiting at the Fair. Even the police
stayed idle as the mob went on destroying materials at the stand.” He said
that it was the same mob that forced GALZ from exhibiting earlier on
Friday, August 2. The journalist spoke to MISA on Monday August 5.
GALZ Administrator, Keith Goddard, confirmed on August 5, reports of
violence, but said that his organisation had already vacated the stand at
the time the mob moved in the Book Fair grounds. “First, we saw a group of
journalists who appeared to have been tipped of the coming mob. Then we
quickly left and later some people told us that our stand had been attacked
and literature which included informative and educational materials torn,”
he said. Goddard said that most of their literature had “fortunately”
already been distributed when the mob arrived. Goddard also said that he
suspected it was university students and a ZANU-PF Youths Brigade that had
“ransacked” GALZ stand.
However, a member of the GALZ, Polyana Mangwiro, reported that she has been
asked by the ZANU-PF officials to leave her home in the town of Marondera.
“Someone took a picture of me at the Fair which I suspect was sent to my
home town in Marondera for easy identification. Later after the Fair
ZANU-PF officials within my home town approached me and said: ‘we don’t
want to see you here again, you must leave the town’. They repeatedly came
to my house from Saturday to Monday (August 5) asking me to leave.”
Mangwiro said that she has since left her home in Marondera for Harare.
Mangwiro said she went to attend the Fair in Harare and had acted at the
Fair as a spokesperson for GALZ. At the Fair, Mangwiro said, she answered
questions related to homosexuality and provided information on the various
materials exhibited at the stand. “But on return to my home in Mangwiro I
was being asked to leave. Now I have no where to go; even my father says he
doesn’t want to see me again,” she said.
Goddard said that he on Monday, August 5, issued a statement in which he
wrote: “GALZ’s participation at the ZIBF represents strong advances in the
battle for freedom of expression and cultural diversity in Zimbabwe.” He
further said that GALZ held “in utter contempt any persons resorting to
primitive violence when putting across their point of view.” The Book Fair
authorities, the statement added, had the duty to uphold the fundamental
principle of freedom of expression, and it was essential that they provide
adequate protection to all exhibitors.
The statement went on to say that threats against GALZ were coming from a
mob led by a “prominent public prosecutor who told journalists he did not
care about High Court rulings.” Goddard said in the statement that culture
belonged to all in Zimbabwe and that it was not a property of any one
group. “Dictations from politicians that all persons within a nation shall
conform to a single set of cultural norms is loathsome in the extreme and
to be challenged forcefully at every time,” said the statement.
However, soon before the Fair opened, Zimbabwe authorities obtained an
order to ban GALZ from exhibiting at the Fair. On Wednesday, July 31, the
High Court ruled the government prohibition order on GALZ invalid. The
Order, under which GALZ was prohibited, was based on Section 17(1) of the
Censorship and Entertainments Control Act. On Tuesday, July 23, Zimbabwe
authorities called for a ban on GALZ from exhibiting at this year’s Fair
saying homosexuals had “‘… absolutely no right to publicly display
literature and material at a public and cultural event…'”.
At last year’s Book Fair, GALZ was barred from exhibiting at the opening of
which President Robert Mugabe said homosexuals had no rights. “If we
accept homosexuality as a right, as is being argued by the association of
sodomites and sexual perverts, what moral fibre shall our society ever have
to deny organised drug addicts, or even those given to bestiality, the
rights they might claim and allege they possess under the rubrics of
‘individual freedom’ and ‘human rights’, including the freedom of the press
to write … on them?” Mugabe said at the ZIBF opening on August 1, 1995.
Later that month, Mugabe said anyone found “practicing” homosexuality would
be imprisoned, adding that the Church could play a vital role in lobbying
against homosexuality.
