By Staff Reporter
DETAINED Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) legislator Job Sikhala has clocked one full year in prison for allegedly inciting violence to avenge party activist Moreblessing Ali’s death.
Sikhala was arrested on June 14 last year and has been in pretrial detention failing to secure bail for many times.
On Wednesday, Sikhala penned an emotional letter, narrating the ill-treatment in prison.
“There are hundreds of people who have visited me at my oppressor’s prison. They were left in shock and disbelief with the level of maltreatment that I go through.
“I am always shackled in chains like a terrorist even when I am shuffled to meet my visitors. At one point the prison authorities failed to unlock the chains. They struggled in vain for over an hour.
“They had to call people from the armory who had to use a hammer and chisel, putting my leg on the hard cemented surface and started pounding on the leg irons until they broke.
“My left leg sustained serious injuries and got swollen for weeks and when it started healing, my skin was peeling off. This is the kind of torture I am going through on a daily basis, it has been a full 365 out of 365 days now,” Sikhala wrote.
Sikhala added: “At one point, I requested the Minister of Justice, Ziyambi Ziyambi, as the administrator of the Prisons Act to conduct a prison visit. He did not come. He is unbothered. I wanted to ask him a few simple questions.”
The legislator has also urged citizens to vote for CCC in the upcoming general elections.
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.
It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
“I love you all! Please pray for me and pray for a better Zimbabwe! Vote for the Citizens Coalition for Change.”
