A Zimbabwean opposition lawmaker was kidnapped, tortured and then dumped naked on a street on Wednesday morning, his party learned, amid ongoing tensions since that country’s disputed elections. Southern Africa in August.
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According to the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), 25-year-old Takudzwa Ngadziore was kidnapped by gunmen near his home in the capital Harare on his way to parliament.
Mr Ngadziore, Zimbabwe’s youngest MP, managed to broadcast the moments before his alleged abduction live on social media.
In the short clip, the distraught politician, wearing a tie, can be seen looking into the camera while saying “I am being persecuted” in the local Shona language, before showing a man armed with a Kalashnikov and wearing a black cap carries and runs towards him.
He was found a few hours later, his body covered in cuts, about forty kilometers near the village of Mazowe, the friend who went to pick him up told AFP.
The CCC, the main opposition party, pointed the finger at the ruling Zanu-PF party and said the kidnapping was part of a wider intimidation campaign against its supporters.
Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Farai Marapina, a Zanu-PF spokesman, told AFP that the country was “riddled with fake news and various forms of disinformation, including fake kidnappings,” but called on “police to investigate this latest allegation” and ” to present the true facts.” “.
For the CCC, “the continued targeting of our members is aimed at instilling fear,” charged the party’s spokesman, Promise Mkwananzi, since the start of Zimbabwe’s rigged elections.
Mr. Ngadziore was hospitalized and likely suffered from a broken hand and knee, said his friend, who preferred to remain anonymous.
Local media and human rights groups have suggested that the kidnappers may be Zimbabwean security forces.
This is the second recent incident of its kind: last week, James Chidhakwa, a former CCC MP, was kidnapped and tortured before being found several hours later with his head shaved in a Harare suburb.
“Zimbabwe has become a rogue state,” said Obert Masaraure, spokesman for the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which brings together more than 80 human rights and civil society groups.
CCC leader Nelson Chamisa, 45, lost the presidential election to outgoing President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 81, in a vote that many international observers said did not meet democratic standards.
According to the CCC, more than a dozen people associated with him have since been arrested on trumped-up charges.
Fifteen more of his MPs lost their seats in Kafkaesque fashion after a call from a fraudster posing as a party official.
The move triggered by-elections in December that could give Zanu-PF, in power since 1980, the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution.