CHIRUNDU – MDC Alliance top leader Tendai Biti has been deported from Zambia hours after his asylum application was turned down.
The High Court in Lusaka had ordered a halt to his removal pending his appearance before a judge on Thursday morning, but lawyers found him gone at the Chirundu Police Post where he had been kept overnight.
Police sources in Zimbabwe told ZimLive.com Biti was handed over to a Criminal Investigations Department team at the Chirundu border post just after 6AM.
Zambia said Biti’s asylum claim was not “meritorious”, but later invoked immigration laws declaring him a prohibited immigrant, effectively allowing authorities to circumvent asylum rules which provide for appeals to the courts.
Biti had made a daring escape into Zambia on Wednesday morning, fleeing what his party says are trumped-up charges of inciting public violence and declaring unofficial Presidential Election results in breach of electoral laws.
MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa said security forces were “persecuting” their members, some of whom were now living in hiding.
“The persecution… by the state is unjustified and unacceptable,” he said on Wednesday.
In a telephone discussion with SADC chairman Cyril Ramaphosa, Chamisa said he had told the South African leader thet he “counts on him to persuade the perpetrators to halt this unmerited persecution.”
The crackdown on the opposition has drawn international condemnation on President Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose legitimacy is being challenged in court after he narrowly won the July 30 election by just over 38,000 votes.
Senior United States leader in the Senate and Congress have warned Mnangagwa that his government’s actions will harm his re-engagement efforts.
Mnangagwa, should his victory be confirmed by the Constitutional Court, will be desperate to get sanctions lifted and open up fresh lines of credit from international financial institutions which take their signal from the United States.
Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said on Thursday : “I’m watching the situation in Zimbabwe very closely, and I’m concerned about reports of arbitrary arrests, detentions, and government-sponsored violence. These tactics have no place in a democracy, and the government must ensure they stop immediately.
“The U.S. Senate will hold the government of Zimbabwe responsible for ensuring Mr. Biti and other detainees are not harmed in any way. I also call upon the Trump Administration, the U.S. State Department, the governments of Zimbabwe, Zambia and other regional actors to stand against politically motivated arrests and to support and promote the rule of law.
“The people of Zimbabwe have suffered through such tactics of repression and intimidation for decades. Last month’s election was supposed to offer them something different. It is not too late for the leaders of Zimbabwe to restore the sense of hope and fairness that its people deserve.”
United States Congressman Eliot Engel, a Ranking Member of House Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, on Wednesday accused Zimbabwean authorities of criminalising opposition.
“Political opposition is not a crime. The government of Zimbabwe’s pursuit of Tendai Biti, a senior member of the opposition MDC Alliance, is outrageous and casts more doubt on the government’s claims that it’s turned a page on its past use of violence and intimidation,” he said on Twitter.
