cc Taking inspiration from the late South African anti-apartheid poet–activist Dennis Brutus’s verb-play, Patrick Bond discusses the ‘mubaraking’ currently faced by a number of dictatorships across Africa.

Thousands of Zimbabweans attended a rally organised by President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party on 3 March in the capital, Harare, to mark the launch of an anti-sanctions campaign. The aim is to collect at least two million signatures on a petition against the sanctions, which Mugabe has blamed for the country's dire economic situation and prolonged food insecurity.

A Zimbabwean magistrate's court has freed 38 activists charged with treason for discussing the mass protests in Egypt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak, a lawyer said. 'Of the 46 who were in custody, 38 have been released completely after the state agreed with us that they had no case to answer,' their attorney Alec Muchadehama told Agence France-Presse. But eight others, including Munyaradzi Gwisai, a university lecturer and former lawmaker from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, remained in custody after the court denied them bail.

As anxiety grows about President Robert Mugabe's health, divisions in Zanu-PF have worsened, with the two main camps angling to succeed the veteran leader intensifying their internal battle for control of the party. Mugabe's health concerns escalated last week when he was rushed to Singapore for what spokesman George Charamba said was 'the last review on his minor cataract operation'.

The Youth Electoral Bulletin from Youth Alliance for Democracy (YAD) aims to fill an information gap that exists in communities ahead of possible elections and a referendum following the manipulation of the national broadcaster to serve the interests of a single political party. The Bulletin will be issued on a weekly basis.

Zimbabwean state security agents tortured 46 detained activists in an attempt to implicate them for treason, according to a statement issued by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. Detained social justice activist Munyaradzi Gwisai said the pain which he endured and suffered as a result of the torture sessions was 'indescribable, sadistic and a tragedy for Zimbabwe'.

Zimbabwe's president has threatened to seize foreign firms and boycott their products in retaliation for Western sanctions against him and senior members of his ruling ZANU-PF party. Robert Mugabe made special mention on Wednesday of British-controlled banks and businesses, saying they controlled 400 businesses in the former British colony in southern Africa.

Faced with Western sanctions, meddling and distorted media reports berating the cronyism and inefficiency underpinning Zimbabwe’s land reform, ‘resettled farmers are succeeding in spite of the obstacles thrown in their way’, argues Gregory Elich.

Zimbabwe’s government recently announced that the country had run out of the critical painkiller morphine. It was just the latest development in a debilitating health care crisis that has seen hospitals turn away patients because of drug shortages. In the absence of even a basic drug such as paracetamol, desperate patients like 44-year-old asthma sufferer Susan Pamire have turned to traditional herbs.

Police have arrested and tortured another dissident critic of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's regime as the government escalated a clampdown against a perceived plot to stage mass demonstrations against the leader, lawyers said late on Monday (01 March). Job Sikhala, the leader of a small offshoot of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was arrested on Friday in connection with an alleged plan to stage demonstrations like those in Egypt.

Three MDC members from Mutare North are recovering, after they were assaulted by a mob of ZANU PF activists, wielding axes on Thursday (24 February). According to the MDC, Farai Matsika, Mabel Manhumwa and Gainmore Machikuni of Mutare North were assaulted for being MDC activists. Matsika was admitted to hospital with a deep cut on his leg, while the other two were left bruised and shaken. Machikuni and Manhumwa’s homes were also both burned down by the ZANU PF mob. The MDC said the violence is part of ZANU PF’s campaign to intimidate people ahead of possible elections.

There is growing condemnation of the ongoing detention of a group of activists in Zimbabwe, arrested almost a week ago for watching TV footage of the revolution in Egypt. Former MDC MP Munyaradzi Gwisai, and 44 other activists, will spend the weekend behind bars after their case was postponed until next Monday. They were this week charged with treason for watching the footage of events in Egypt and Tunisia, which led to the fall of the governments in those countries. Local and international rights groups are calling for the immediate release of the activists, condemning their detention and their treatment at the hands of state security agents.

Various campaigns hoping to defy Robert Mugabe’s clampdown on civic action have been launched, trying to encourage Zimbabweans to follow the lead of other African countries protesting against their dictators. The campaigns, launched over email and through the social networking websites, Facebook and Twitter, encourage Zimbabweans to hold peaceful marches calling for Mugabe to step down. The ‘Zimbabwe Million Citizen March’ was launched a week ago, and calls for a mass protest next Tuesday under the theme ‘Power in numbers to remove dictatorship’.

The high cost of maternity and health care, the lack of a proper follow-up system, and a limited ability to diagnose HIV infection early in babies means many Zimbabwean children are not being caught by the safety net that the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme was intended to provide. At least 150,000 children below the age of 15 are living with HIV, and more than 90 per cent of HIV infections can be attributed to vertical transmission, according to government figures.

COSATU has condemned the continued persecution of political activists in Zimbabwe and the never improving situation in that country. 'The detention of about 52 activists of the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) in Harare on baseless charges of plotting to topple the government indicates the state of insecurity in that country. Amongst those arrested was a former MP for Highfield, who is also the general coordinator of International Socialist Organisation (ISO).'

South African President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team is due to travel to Harare, to meet with representatives from Zimbabwe’s three main political parties. Zuma’s international advisor, Lindiwe Zulu confirmed the trip, saying the parties had given her 'people to work with'. She explained that her team would meet with the parties separately, and collectively, to draw up a framework and discuss what is to be included in the roadmap for elections.

Twenty four per cent of adults living in urban centres are now using the internet, according to the latest Zimbabwe All Media Products and Services Survey (ZAMPS). The figure represents a two per cent increase in the last three months alone.

One thousand eight hundred women and men, members of Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) turned out for the ninth edition of the Valentines Day protests, the biggest protest since WOZA began these protests in 2003. The huge mass of singing protestors completely closed off 9th avenue for over 30 minutes.

ZANU PF Member of Parliament for Gokwe Central Dorothy Mhangami with the help of war veterans and party youths on Tuesday 26 January 2011 force marched villagers to attend a rally at Gokwe Centre where she told scores of people in attendance to come in their numbers and sign a petition calling for the removal of sanctions. This is part of a ZANU PF campaign to have more than a million signatures throughout the country against the targeted sanctions imposed by the West on President Robert Mugabe and his allies endorsed on a petition.

The African Union Commission is opposed to elections in Zimbabwe this year and is now trying to persuade President Robert Mugabe to postpone them to 2013 to allow for necessary reforms that can ensure violence-free, credible, free and fair polls, top officials in the commission revealed this week. In separate interviews with the Zimbabwe Independent, senior officials in the Political Affairs’ Department of Human Rights, Elections and Peace and Security of the AU Commission, who preferred anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media, said the commission was planning to send an AU assessment team to Zimbabwe to find out if conditions were right for elections.