Staff Writer
The Election Resource Centre (ERC) and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) staff and volunteers who were charged with purporting to announce elections results have been released Friday on US$200 bail by a Harare magistrate.
The 30 were arrested on Wednesday after armed police raided Data centres where the staff and volunteers were gathering electoral information by law enforcement agents on Wednesday.
The ERC and ZESN jointly set up two data centres for observation of the Harmonised Elections, one at Holiday Inn and another one in the Grange in Harare.
It is through the data centres that information on polling day processes, updates and critical incidents are recorded.
From the information gathered throughout the Electoral cycle, ERC and ZESN will be in a position to appraise the credibility of elections as provided for in Section 40 G of the Electoral Act, SADC Principles and Guidelines on Conducting Democratic Elections, Article 22 of ACDEG as well as international fundamental obligations.
The ERC and ZESN are a signatory of the Declaration of Global Principles for Election Observation and Monitoring by citizen organisations which sets standards for the conduct for observers and underscores the importance of independent, professional and credible election observation.
The rights of citizen election observers are recognised by the UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights defenders who explicitly urge Member States to “take all necessary steps to establish conditions that allow national and international election observers to effectively do their work, and to protect them from any violence, threats, retaliation, adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of their legitimate exercise of their rights and freedoms.”
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