CLAIM: Police block more Zanu PF gatherings than opposition
SOURCE: The Herald
VERDICT: False
The Herald newspaper published a story headlined ‘Police block more Zanu PF gatherings than opposition’ on July 25.
The story was also published on Afro Gazette here.
The article reported that ‘Police have blocked 86 gatherings of the ruling Zanu PF party between January 1 and July 10 as compared to 65 from its main rival CCC in the same period despite claims by the opposition party that the police were biased against it in approving its public gatherings.’
Credit: Anesu Masamvu & ZiFM
This was based on remarks by Home Affairs and Cultural Affairs permanent secretary, Dr Gerald Gwinji when addressing Diplomatic missions accredited to Zimbabwe and Observer missions. In a video posted by radio station ZiFM, he said, ‘The police has received a total of 1 437 notifications from the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front – ZANU PF. Of these 1 351 were compliant whilst 86 were not compliant. As a result they could not proceed. The Citizens Coalition for Change -CCC, filed 410 notifications. 345 of these were compliant whilst the remainder 65 were not.’
The conclusion drawn by the Herald that the secretary’s statistics mean that the police blocked more Zanu PF gatherings than opposition’s is faulty. The Herald conclusion is based on the simplistic deduction that 86 is more than 65.
However, this comparison is faulty because the two parties did not make the same number of notifications to the police. To get a better comparison would be to calculate the percentage of gatherings blocked. In the case of ZANU PF, the police blocked 86 out of 1 437 meetings – translating to about 6% of gatherings blocked. For CCC, 65 gatherings were blocked out of 410 – making it about 16% of gatherings blocked.
Credit: Anesu Masamvu & ZiFM
Conclusion
The claim by the Herald newspaper that the police have blocked ‘more Zanu PF gatherings than opposition’ has been rated as false because it is built of a faulty premise. The figures given by Dr Gwinji actually show that the police have blocked 16% of CCC gatherings as compared to 6% of gatherings for the ruling party.
