Conversation and coffee with
Arnold Tsunga
Friday, November 10
10:15-11:30am, FREE
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
800 S. Halsted St.
Residents' Dining Hall
Seating is limited. Reservations required.
call 312.413.5353
Please notify us at the time of reservation if any special accommodations for the event are needed.
Arnold Tsunga is a courageous Zimbabwean human rights lawyer and activist whose work has highlighted the deteriorating state of human rights in Zimbabwe. Human Rights Watch will give its highest recognition to him this week.
“Arnold Tsunga provides a voice to those silenced by repression in Zimbabwe,” said Tiseke Kasambala, researcher with Human Rights Watch's Africa Division. “He has shown extraordinary courage and commitment to human rights in the face of severe persecution by the government of Zimbabwe.” |
|
| A high-profile defender of the rule of law in Zimbabwe, Tsunga has often spoken out against government abuses at great personal risk. He has been the victim of numerous attacks, arrests and death threats. He is the Executive Director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, a leading human rights organization that provides legal representation to victims of human rights abuses, including human rights defenders who are often arrested and detained in Zimbabwe.
|
 |
 |
In January 2006, Tsunga and five others were arrested and charged with operating a broadcasting service without a license, even though the law under which they were charged did not apply in their case. The charges which were dismissed by the High Court on September 25, 2006, appeared to be yet another attempt by the government to intimidate and harass Tsunga and his colleagues.
In March 2002, Tsunga was seized at gunpoint by soldiers, detained for several hours and then assaulted in front of onlookers. In September of the same year, he was unlawfully detained and threatened with a gun when he visited a police station in the town of Chimanimani to represent a client who had been abducted by government intelligence officers.
In the past six years, the government of Zimbabwe has increasingly turned to repressive and, at times, violent means to suppress criticism from the opposition and civil society. Independent media outlets have been closed down and opposition political parties have been stifled. Police and other state-sponsored agents routinely intimidate, attack and torture government critics, including members of civil society organizations, human rights lawyers, journalists and trade unionists. At the same time, the police have used repressive laws to silence critical or dissenting voices within civil society. Human rights abuses continue to take place with impunity; few perpetrators are brought to justice.
The continuing erosion of human rights in Zimbabwe was highlighted in 2005 by the government's brutal campaign of mass evictions and demolitions which began in May, and, which, according to the United Nations, deprived 700,000 men, women and children throughout the country of their homes, their livelihoods, or both.
Tsunga and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights have worked tirelessly to get justice for the victims of the evictions in the domestic courts and at other regional proceedings. |
More information about the museum and its programs can be found at www.hullhousemuseum.org.
|
|
This event is co-sponsored by
Human Rights Watch
and
African American Studies at UIC
|
|
|