Political reform hopes dim in Zimbabwe as police block another protest | IOL News

Harare - Zimbabwe police deployed in force on Tuesday to block a street protest for the third time in five days, as the main opposition party said hopes were vanishing that the government might become more tolerant of dissent than the regime it replaced.

“There is a determined effort by the regime to ensure that there is no more democratic space,” MDC national spokesman Daniel Molokele said. The MDC said it would challenge the ban in court on Tuesday. The party failed to overturn two previous bans on marches in the capital Harare on Friday - where police rounded up MDC followers and dispersed them with batons and water cannon and tear gas - and in the second city Bulawayo on Monday.

The MDC says the protest bans are unconstitutional, while police said they have had evidence the protests would turn violent and did not have enough manpower to monitor them. “The move to ban demonstrations predicated on a spurious assertion that the opposition is plotting violent regime change, is not sustainable,” said analyst Piers Pigou, Crisis Group’s senior consultant for southern Africa.

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