Trial starts of 17 participants in Renamo demonstration
The trial of 17 people arrested on Friday during protests in Maputo, organised by the main opposition party, Renamo, against the preliminary results of the 11 October municipal elections, began in a courtroom in the municipal district of KaMpfumo on Tuesday morning.
The trial should have taken place on Monday, but was postponed by 24 hours and no reason was given for this delay.
A lawyer for the detainees, Rosita Euridice, was furious that they were kept waiting throughout Monday morning and early afternoon, without any explanation. Cited by the independent newsheet “Mediafax”, she said it was intolerable that citizens were deprived of their freedom just for attending a peaceful demonstration.
She said that some of those detained were not on the demonstration at all, but were just returning from school or work when they were caught up in the protest.
The 17 are charged with such crimes as association to obstruct the public highway, possession of home-made bombs, and destruction of public and private property.
The court illegally barred journalists from the courtroom, although relatives of the detainees were allowed to enter.
On Monday, relatives, friends, and human rights activists told reporters that the detainees were being held under inhuman conditions, crammed into a cell where at most five people could fit. As a result, they had been kept standing up, unable to sleep properly, since Friday.
According to Venancio Mondlane, the Renamo candidate for Mayor of Maputo, who led the Friday march, a total of 32 people were detained and are being held in several of the city’s police stations.
