100 WOZA women arrested in Valentine's march

100 WOZA women arrested in Valentine's march

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By Staff Reporter

POLICE in Bulawayo on Monday arrested more than 100 women, several with babies strapped on their backs, for staging a demonstration to draw attention to food shortages and alleged human rights violations, protest organisers said.

The demonstrators marched eight blocks through Bulawayo, the country's second largest city, distributing red roses and Valentine's Day cards symbolising calls for love, peace and harmony in the troubled southern African nation, said the organisers, who were from a group called Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza).

Under Zimbabwe's sweeping security laws, public demonstrations require police clearance.

Woza said in a statement late on Monday that several hundred women took part in the protest march, but more than 100, including 13 babies, were arrested as the marchers dispersed.

No comment was immediately available from police in Bulawayo.

The organisers said lawyers were being denied access to those arrested, with police saying the women's details were still being processed by arresting officers.

The marchers demanded "bread and roses" to protest acute food shortages and alleged human rights violations by authorities, including arbitrary arrests of government critics.

The women's organisation has staged Valentine's Day protests since the security laws were first enforced in 2002. Protesters were arrested each year and were mostly fined and released.

Members of the organisation have also been arrested for protests in which they took to the streets banging empty pots and pans to protest hunger and spiralling inflation, currently running at 586 percent.

Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, with acute shortages of food, hard currency, gasoline, medicines and other essential imports.

The crisis has been mainly blamed on the often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms since 2000, economic mismanagement and corruption. - Sapa-AP
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