If you’ve got Internet access please sign the Avaaz petition to protest human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa’s detention.

Beatrice Mtetwa remanded to 3 April

Zimbabwe’s prominent human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa has been remanded in custody to 3 April. Her incarceration is a national disgrace and an outrage.

Reuters reports: “Mtetwa was arrested on Sunday and and accused of shouting at and taking pictures of police officers who were conducting a search at the house of one of Tsvangirai’s aides.”

According to Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, of which Mtetwa is a board member, her offence was simply asking the police to see their search warrant, and writing down a list of what was being taken by the police.

She has been detained along with four aides from the Prime Minister’s office.

In denying the bail application of Mtetwa and the four aides today, Magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa said they would “continue to cause commotion and interfere with police investigations”.

Zimbabwe’s Education Minister David Coltart responded via Twitter: How ridiculous – where are the cartoonists out there – the diminutive Beatrice Mtetwa terrifying a bunch of huge policemen?

This inspired us:

Nhai iwe ‘Munhu’? Please can someone answer me. You tell me that there are now City of Harare, ministry of local government or ZRP guys who use the Willowvale Road  and they don’t have eyes to see that along that road, opposite ZESA, the drainage system is pathetic. You don’t need foreign currency but only a shovel.  You tell me to vote. For what? For someone to sit in the office and drive a Benz. Come on guys.

A Kubatana subscriber confronts the constitutional referendum with confidence:

The day began with gathering about ten people in my hood. I stay in Maridale, Norton. I asked who had seen or read the draft. A friend said he was given a Ndebele version at work. He is a serving military man. And he cant even say ‘ca’. I asked how each one was going to vote. ‘Yes’ because that’s what the government is saying, came the reply. Yes, we all want a new constitution, but how can I vote blindly with the crowd I asked? So in the end we decided to protest. We voted ‘no’. In defeat we were proud.

We have always known that some of these ridiculously pro-Zanu PF newspapers carry “letters to the Editor” written by their own staffers, yet this brazen conduct always manages to jolt us each time we come across such writing.

“A reader” was at it again this week in the Chronicle (19 March 2013) trashing Morgan Tsvangirai and Kenya’s Raila Odinga, declaring that the two “must never be allowed to rule.” I wondered what anarchist would promote such dangerous rhetoric, if not emanating from the Zimpapers scribes  themselves who we know have never shied away from treating Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister with such disrespect he is considered no different from the ordinary Jack.

“Bravo Cde Uhuru Kenyatta,” the “letter writer” wrote, obviously wishing they could shake Uhuru’s hand.

You have to ask yourself if these people actually believe their own nonsense where state media hacks cloak their identities and assume aliases as “Avid readers.”

On another note, I always say that state media journalists obviously do not read what they write and their handlers are certainly not as sharp as they always seek to present themselves.

An editorial in the Chronicle on Monday this week headed “Chinese leadership transition laudable” praised the “new crop of leaders of Chinese Communist Party”, hailing it as a sure sign of “China’s brand of democracy” at work.

The message was loud enough for any discerning reader: if the Chinese could have such a smooth transfer of power, why not Zanu PF!

Well, that was dismal. Almost as exciting as the election of the new Pope! There were more people administering the referendum than people to vote in it. What this most says to me – the people think the politicians (and politics) are irrelevant.

Legislation. What is it for? There was new legislation recently about some new sticker on the back of pick-ups. Where did that come from? Do the police know or understand it, or is it an excuse to solicit bribes at roadblocks?

In a previous blog, I wrote about spending time stopped on Chiremba Road. I never did find out what, if any, ‘offense’ I had committed, under any legislation.

There is new legislation on fuel costs. Who will enforce this?

I read an article in the Mail and Guardian some weeks back, about 450 vehicles (new/ secondhand/used Japanese imports) a day crossing the border. None of it legal. None of it having duty paid for. And the local car industry was collapsing. This is SERIOUS lack of law enforcement, with SERIOUS consequences for Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwean jobs. Not to mention unsafe vehicles all over the roads, killing people.

There is no rule of law in Zimbabwe. So why must we go out there to dip our fingers in ink to agree, or disagree with a new law? (That is all a constitution is. Basic law.) And who did vote? At another meeting today, one guy there, was the only one of 8 in his office that voted. That is a 12 1/2 percent turnout.

But it all stems from our leaders. They have shown us this is the way it is to be done.

In my case, the Registrar General, Tobaiwa Mudede, should be in jail. He was handed a court order in 2002 ordering him, within seven days, to announce the results of my election. He has never done so. He is in contempt of court. The law says, if you fail to comply with a court order, you will go to jail until you do. It has never been done. Mudede should have been in jail for the last ten years. Yet he is running a senior government office. Taking pay.

Where is the law in Zimbabwe?

The head of the ZNA (treasonous fellow), declares who he will salute, and who he will not salute. As if the army belonged to him, and not the people of Zimbabwe! He will salute who he feels like, and not who the people of Zimbabwe tell him to salute. However, instead of the law taking its course (for treason you get hanged by the neck until dead), this man is still head of Zimbabwe’s Army.

Where is the law in Zimbabwe?

We live in medieval China of the warlords. The Wild West. Harry Potter world, in the last book, where the ministry has collapsed. This is fantasy. Legislature has been made irrelevant, just as the justice system has been made irrelevant. Only power exists.

So why should we get out and vote for something irrelevant?