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Home » Heat on Mugabe as #ShutDownZimbabwe Stayaway Empties Cities

Heat on Mugabe as #ShutDownZimbabwe Stayaway Empties Cities

A 3-day countrywide stayaway in Zimbabwe starting on Wednesday to protest against President Robert Mugabe’s policies reportedly resulted in the government bringing out its military and clamping down on certain media, which led to Anonymous Africa shutting down the ruling party’s ZANU-PF website. “To show our support for the heroic protests happening on the ground,” Anonymous […]

By SAPeople Staff Writer
06-07-16 18:59
in News
harare

A 3-day countrywide stayaway in Zimbabwe starting on Wednesday to protest against President Robert Mugabe’s policies reportedly resulted in the government bringing out its military and clamping down on certain media, which led to Anonymous Africa shutting down the ruling party’s ZANU-PF website.

“To show our support for the heroic protests happening on the ground,” Anonymous Africa said on its blog, “we have shut down the ZANU-PF website and we have shut down POTRAZ (the local telecoms regulator) website.” Both sites were still not working late on Wednesday.

Reports from Zimbabwe were scant, but pictures on Twitter under the hashtag #ShutdownZimbabwe2016 showed an empty capital city this morning, and scenes of unrest in Bulawayo. Today was the first day of a three-day stayaway. Though there were pictures of some burning tyres, reports said the stayaway was largely peaceful.

The Democratic Alliance has urged the South African government to say something about what is happening north of its border.

“We call on President Zuma – as a leader in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region – and the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoane-Mashabane, to break their silence and condemn the atrocities currently being carried out in Zimbabwe,” the DA said in a statement.

The stayaway was apparently carried out under the banner of #ThisFlag, which was started in April by Zimbabwean pastor Evan Mawarire to protest against the government “for allowing corruption, injustice and poverty”.

One of numerous flashpoints for the latest protest was the Zimbabwean government’s action on Friday to stop traders from coming back from South Africa unless they had a permit to bring in basic goods. The Beitbridge border post was closed for much of the day, and a Zimbabwean storage facility was burned.