109 WOZA women arrested

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INSIZA – More than 100 women were arrested in Filabusi Town this week after after a peaceful protest against skyrocketing school fees and the chasing home of children whose parents cannot pay. Police hurriedly took the 109 women to Filabusi Magistrates court at 16:30 pm on Monday where they were charged under the Miscellaneous Offices Act (MOA) Section 7 - conduct likely to disturb the peace. Law and Order police officers had driven about 80 kilometres from Gwanda to ensure that the women were charged. The prosecutor at Filabusi advised them however to release the women as they had no case. All the women were released, including an extra 18 who had handed themselves over to police in solidarity. Many of the members were forced to walk over 50 kilometres home as by 5pm there was be no transport to take them home. Andrew Langa, MP for Insiza, drove past the procession in the morning and stooped low enough to insult the women, asking them “if their husbands had not performed well the night before to bring them out into the street”. He spent most of the day monitoring the police station and at one point went into the station and further insulted the women. They replied telling him that he should rather concentrate on lowering the school fees than on insulting them. Mugabe was in Insiza at Silalatshani Irrigation scheme to show off a bumper harvest grown by soldiers who appropriated the irrigation scheme. Some members of WOZA are former beneficiaries of the irrigation scheme. They were chased away some months ago by soldiers. - WOZA