I'm moving

Yup, it didn't take long, but i'm moving from blogger to wordpress, because it's just obviously better.

To those few people who have very kindly blogrolled me, I'd much appreciate if you could update your links. The new address is: http://itsjustmissingwords.wordpress.com/

Thanks!

Update on arrests during WOZA demo, plus what you can do

This is a press release from WOZA from Saturday 14/2, but it appears the 10 people are still under arrest so actions still relevant:

10 held overnight at Bulawayo Central Police Station – lawyers denied access

Seven WOZA members and three unidentified men will spend the night in Bulawayo Central Police Station. Lawyers from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights have been denied access to the group on four separate occasions so it is not known how they are or if they have been mistreated in custody. They have been allowed food this evening and it is hoped that the lawyer will be given access in the morning.

Amongst those arrested are Praise Mlangeni, Barbara Bepe, Patience Mpofu, Shingirai Mupani and Gladys Dube. It transpires that the large group under arrest at the corner of 9th Avenue and Fort Street were ordered by a senior police officer to march to City Hall. As the group was so large however, and the number of police escorts relatively few, many were able to slip away as they walked the several blocks to City Hall.

At City Hall, those under arrest were asked to present their identification cards to police and were searched. Anyone found with WOZA materials (including red roses) were sent to Central Police Station. Those that did not have any WOZA items in their possession were released. It also appears that police did not remain nonviolent. Witnesses report seeing riot police randomly beating people, some several blocks away from the demonstration. Six young men, who just happened to be passing the offices of the Chronicle, were observed to be beaten by riot police. Chronicle staff members were also seen to be pointing out WOZA members who had delivered Valentine’s cards and roses to their offices to the police, leading to their arrest.

Please feel free to contact The Chronicle and ask why their staff felt it necessary to have women arrested who were merely giving them red roses and Valentine’s cards. Phone +263 9 888870/9, fax +263 9 888884 or email editor@chronicle.co.zw.

The demonstrations and the chaotic and violent dispersal were witnessed by three South African observers from civic society – Precious Myeza from South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO), Sakina Mohamed from the South African
Council of Churches and Bunie Matlanyane Sexwale from Khulumani Support Group as part of the Save Zimbabwe Now Coalition. All were present to provide solidarity with WOZA members today as it was strongly suspected that police would react oppressively as there is little doubt in the minds of ordinary Zimbabweans that the unity government has not changed anything on the ground.

Please contact Bulawayo Central Police Station on +263 972515/61706/63061/68078 to ask them why they continue to beat innocent bystanders and arrest citizens carrying out their democratic right under the Constitution of Zimbabwe to peacefully protest despite the dawn of a new unity government. Please also ask them to release those arrested today immediately.

You can user http://www.cheapestcalls.co.uk/ to save money calling overseas.

Zimbabwe: 100 WOZA And MOZA Arrested in Byo

From allAfrica.com:

At least 800 members of WOZA and MOZA took to the streets of Bulawayo this morning, Valentine's Day, urging Zimbabweans to let love light the way. At the time of this release, at least a hundred women and men have been arrested by riot police.

...

Valentine's Day is traditionally an occasion that WOZA has used to urge Zimbabweans to choose love over hate and marks the 7th anniversary of WOZA's birth. Today's demonstration also marks the first public action in Bulawayo of the new WOZA campaign, Take the Step, which is designed to encourage Zimbabweans to continue with the civic participation that they demonstrated in March 2008.

...

The events in Bulawayo today, together with the arrest of the 10 people after Tuesday's protest, the arrest of MDC Treasurer Roy Bennett on the day of the wearing in of Ministers and the continued incarceration of Jestina Mukoko and other abductees despite court orders instructing their release, are further evidence however that nothing has changed in Zimbabwe. More than ever Zimbabweans need to remain vigilant and participate in defending their rights and freedoms against a regime determined to cling to power despite the platitudes they mouth that they are prepared to share power.

In the absence of actually writing something myself...

Hmm so it turns out I am better at keeping up with reading blogs than I am with writing one. I'll have to work on that. In the meantime, here's some of the most interesting & inspiring stuff I've been reading lately:

Everything In The Sink: Writing, Health, Feminism, Poetry by Lisa @ My Ecdysis

Black History Month: Joan Gibson, Rosa Parks, and the Women's Political Counsel by Prof Susurro @ Like a Whisper

Ignoring African Wars by Sokari @ Black Looks

Yes Means Yes: with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha interview at the F-word

"Radical uncertainty" by Michelle @ Lonergrrrl

From Gaza

A letter posted on From Gaza, with Love:

the aftermath of the massacre leaves destroyed families and buildings, no sign of cement coming in, rafah still intermittently closed, many patients transferred to egypt and lost into black hole of buearocracy and families cannot trace. medical staff and people still shellshocked although cars and people on the streets again but all people have the memories of the events of 20 days bombardment, charred bodies and probably no family is intact.

Remember Zimbabwe

From Africa news:

The death toll of cholera continues to increase in Zimbabwe at alarming
proportion. Latest reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) say that
over 3,000 people have died so far.

The disease which started mainly due to people drinking unsafe water
and poor hygiene is also said to have infected about 57,000 Zimbabweans.

Important stuff on the Internet!

Ultra Violet have posted an interview with Madhu Bhushan, an inspirational women's rights activist organising against violence against women with the organisation Vimochana in Bangalore. On their approach to understanding violence:

While Vimochana’s specific concern was and is the socially sanctioned personal forms of violence perpetrated on women within the home and outside (dowry tortures, murders and other forms of marital violence, sexual harassment and rape of women, trafficking and commodification of women), our wider preoccupation has always been with the larger forms of violence in society. So our engagement is also with the more public and political forms of violence stemming from ideologies like that of communalism, fundamentalism, nationalism and militarisation which are leading to greater human insecurity, institutionalised intolerance and the increasing brutalisation of patriarchies both within the home and outside.

Interview is in two parts: part 1, part 2

Sobia at Muslimah Media Watch writes about why the BBC's coverage of young Asian women's drug use and abortion rates is dishonest and also fails to address the underlying causes of racism and discrimination:

When was the last time we read “More White women ‘use hard drugs’ ” or “More White women having abortions”? What is the point of racializing drug use and abortions? Because that is what such reports do. And as a result the South Asian community is made into a spectacle to be gossiped about. An ethnic minority that
is so concerned about their image, and for good reason considering the racism and marginalization they have faced, is not so “perfect” after all, is the tone these articles seems to take on.

Latina Lista has info about a new report which highlights shortfalls in Arizona detention facilities holding immigrant women - "the fastest growing form of incarceration in the country".

Plus brownfemipower and Jess Hoffman are doing some amazing collaborative theorizing, decolonising movement, rebuilding new worlds brick by brick.