Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Solidarity with Imprisoned Zimbabwean Union Leaders

From Trades Union Congress:

Take action now to support Zimbabwean trade unionists on trial - We need your photo now!

On Monday 23 June, just days before the Presidential run-off election, Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibebe, President and General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) will be in court to face charges of 'spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state' - or rather, telling the truth about violence in Zimbabwe. As part of their bail conditions they have been banned from addressing political or public gatherings for almost the whole election campaign. These charges and bail conditions are clear breaches of free speech and freedom to associate.

We are urging people everywhere to protest at attempts to silence these men, and at the state-sponsored violence and intimidation which has intensified since the first round of elections in March.

If Lovemore and Wellington aren't able to address a public gathering themselves, you can help them to with this campaign action, but you'll need to hurry.

We are making a giant photo mosaic of Lovemore and Wellington, using pictures of hundreds of their supporters from around the world - and we want to use your photo as one tiny part of it. We'll get this printed on a large banner as a focus for the London demonstration on 23 June, and will make the image available to other international demonstrations and to the media.

This is a last minute campaign, so we need to get your photos in immediately.
There are two ways to do this:

Take a photo of yourself with your digital camera and email it to zim@tuc.org.uk

Take a photo of yourself with your cameraphone and send it by MMS to 07546 229055 (0044 7546 229055 from outside the UK)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The ZCTU is no more representative of workers in Zimbabwe then the CTG in Venezezuela. The Bussh and Lbair administrations are giving money to the opposition in order to undermine Mugabe. Read Strange Liberators by Greg Elich. Here are some articles on Zimbabwe, http://www.raceandhistory.com/Zimbabwe/2007/2205.html and http://www.raceandhistory.com/selfnews/viewnews.cgi?newsid1039800097,72779,.shtml