From:UK Delegation to the OSCE

The United Kingdom remains deeply concerned about the situation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Russian Federation. As we said on 12 March, the ruling of the Russian Supreme Court in July 2017, which rejected the appeal against the decision to categorise Jehovah’s Witnesses as “extremists”, criminalised the peaceful worship of 175,000 Russian citizens and contravened the right to religious freedom that is enshrined in the Russian Constitution, and in multiple OSCE commitments.

It is with deep regret that we learned that on 13 July, 110 homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses were simultaneously searched by Russian authorities in the cities of Voronezh and Stary Oskol. Thirteen Jehovah’s Witnesses were detained at the time and two individuals were reportedly beaten during a home search.

The total number of homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses that have been searched by Russian law enforcement authorities now stands at over 1,000. As we noted in March, home raids are often conducted in the early hours of the morning by large numbers of masked and armed police.

We repeat our concern that the increasing number of searches, as well as use of simultaneous large-scale home raids, creates the impression of an organised campaign of persecution against Jehovah’s Witnesses.

So-called “evidence” used against those investigated and prosecuted includes regular aspects of communal religious life. We again remind the Russian Federation of our extensive commitments on freedom of religion or belief, including from Vienna 1989, as well as Kyiv 2013, where States committed to:

Fully implement their commitments to ensure the right of all individuals to profess and practice religion or belief, either alone or in community with others, and in public or private, and to manifest their religion or belief through teaching, practice, worship and observance, including through transparent and non-discriminatory laws, regulations, practices and policies;

For three years now, the delegation of the Russian Federation has assured the Permanent Council that individual Jehovah’s Witnesses are able to practice their religion at home, as no permission is required to pray in Russia. However, we have witnessed time and again that any manifestation of their faith by Jehovah’s Witnesses can result in the search of their homes, lengthy detention, criminal prosecution and imprisonment.

We again call on the Russian Federation to end the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and to uphold the commitments on the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief for all individuals across the Russian Federation.

Jarrod Lopes, spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses, states:  “The UK Delegation has consistently condemned Russia for arresting, imprisoning, and torturing Jehovah’s Witnesses for their peaceful Christian worship. The UK’s statement today is the latest by a growing number of international actors who have likewise denounced Russia. We hope Russian authorities will soon halt the persecution and provide the freedom of religion that is enshrined in its constitution.”

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe’s tertiary institutions are causing a lot of contentions on whether or not they should remain opened.

However, with the surge in COVID-19 cases some members of the civic society have felt the need for the learning institutions to be closed.

“We recognize the need to fulfill and rescue the 2020 academic calendar but we are also conscious of the fact that we can only learn if we are alive. Recently we have heard of an unconfirmed COVID-19 case at Chinhoyi University of Technology.

In the absence of standard protective clothing provided by the government and institutions, it is only noble that institutions of higher learning pause accepting more classes on campus to avoid putting students and staff at risk. We can rescue the academic calendar but not lost lives.

However, the alternative would be to replace contact learning with online learning. That would however pose the same problems we faced at the beginning of the lockdown. Online learning excludes many students because of data prices. Institutions would have to provide data for students or make online learning sites accessible at zero rate.

Government has been promising a lot while forgetting to deliver. The Ministry agreed to a deal that offered cheaper data bundles to students. We had hoped government had a plan before the lockdown but unfortunately there was no coherent strategy,” said Tapiwanashe Chiriga, Zimbabwe National Student Union (ZINASU)’s secretary general.

However, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ)’s chairperson, Dr. Takavafira Zhou said opening up tertiary institutions would help the government in finding innovative ways of curbing the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I certainly don’t see anything wrong in institutions of higher learning remaining open provided they meet WHO standards with respect to testing of all lecturers, students, and ancillary staff before opening. There is also need to clean and disinfect all institutions that were used as quarantine centres. In essence, students in institutions of higher learning are Majors in terms of the law who can in particular reason in a rational manner in terms of procedures and standards to abate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I however, hope government will invest more resources in order to abate the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

However, we certainly need to look into the possibility of existing in a world infested with COVID-19 and opening tertiary institutions is a way of finding mitigating measures of  copying with the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s however possible to suspend learning and resort to e-learning but the challenge is that our resources and connectivity are pathetic. We however need to be innovative and dynamic and find ways to teach students during this COVID-19 pandemic particularly the use of class and subject WhatsApp groups,” said Dr. Zhou

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe – The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ)’s chairperson, Dr. Takavafira Zhou is calling upon the government to review teachers’ salaries.

Teachers in the southern African country are currently earning an average salary of US$30 a month.

“A considerable number of teachers turned to agony, anguish and wailing after receiving their starvation wages last week. Our view as PTUZ is that there is no need to regret for being a teacher, and teachers must never mentally resign although they physically remain teachers in Zimbabwe. The situation where 99 percent of teachers have mentally resigned although they physically remain as teachers is not enviable for the profession.

Rather teachers across the country must get organised and force their leaders to collectively unite and seek for an explanation from government as it is within the purview of trade unionism to do so. There is also need for unity in our diversity in clamouring for the restoration of our October 2018 salaries pegged at US$550. The restoration of our purchasing power parity is a dispute of right that must unite teachers across the union and non-union divide. There is no need to try to politicise such a clear labour issue. As long as our politics is non partisan but focused on creating a credible education system in Zimbabwe there is nothing to fear except fear itself.

However, we also note that deferment must have been followed by engagement between Ministry officials and union leaders over what should be done when and how? Sadly, we hear that government has already penciled ‘O’ and ‘A’  examinations for January 2021 without consulting those nearer to pupils, viz, teachers. Nothing is also planned in terms of establishing a robust Task Force comprising trade unions, health and education officials in order to carry a COVID-19 risk assessment and advice accordingly, when and how schools can open. The general assumption that intelligence resides in big offices at Head Office as if knowledge comes through osmosis by virtue of occupying a big office is not only puzzling but vogue and vacuous. The best way of introducing reforms in the education system is to engage teachers and proceed through consensus.

Command Education will never give best results. There is urgent need to motivate teachers so that they find dynamic ways of helping their students even during this COVID-19 lockdown, particularly through class and subject WhatsApp groups that also ordinarily include sending work to and from students through parents’ phones as well as feedback. Sadly, the Ministry engaged in radio and television lessons without serious engagement with unions with the consequent failure to smoothly take off as in essence more than 75 percent of students have no access to radio and television frequencies.

As PTUZ, we urge the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to mellow down to a more constructive approach of meaningful engagement with union leaders, logical disputation rather than seeking rubber stamping of weird programs by teachers.

Moreover, teachers brim with and exude best intentions to assist their students and must be taken seriously by officials, rather than to be taken as if they are of no account. Teaching is the mother of all professions, yet in Zimbabwe teachers have fallen from grace to grass with monotonous regularity. Guarantee our health, safety and welfare and allow us our professional space to assist students during lockdown and after. Our intellect and acumen are at the disposal of government in order to ensure sustainable development of the nation but our best can never be realised when our health, safety and welfare are not a government priority.

Invest in our safety, health, welfare and quality public education and see how we will become a vital cog of a skills revolution and national development. We are everything, yet we now count for nothing. We manage the world’s best asset, viz, students, and must be respected together with the asset we manage in order to foster development,” said Dr. Zhou.