Non-governmental organizations face threats of termination and criminal prosecution
On April 11, 2025, Zimbabwean President Emerson Mnangagwa signed the Act on Non-Governmental Organizations that sharply reduces freedom of association and rights to expression, Human Rights Watch said today.
The private, voluntary organizational amendment law gives the government the power to deduct and seize assets of non-governmental groups that are deemed to be acting in a “political, partisan way.” The law severely limits the civic space of groups fighting political crackdowns in the country.
“Zimbabwean authorities have long used domestic law as a means of suppression, and this new law allows them to target civil groups,” said Idris Ali Nassa, senior African researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Non-governmental organizations cannot freely exercise their rights of free expression or other democratic freedom when their very existence is threatened.”
The new law allows the government to cancel registrations for organizations that remain or have no judicial review requests. Violation of the law can cause criminal prosecution, with fines ranging from fines to imprisonment. The authorities also have extensive authority to monitor and manage the operations of non-governmental organizations, including scrutiny of ownership structures, funding sources, and affiliations.
The government argued that it was necessary for the group to curb the group from financing terrorism and money laundering and to comply with the recommendations of Zimbabwe’s Financial Action Task Force. Before signing the bill, President Mnangagwa said the law is necessary to protect the sovereignty of the country and to prevent and defend the interests of foreign countries from becoming precarious.
National and international human rights and civil society organisations, including Human Rights Watch, have urged Mnangagwa not to sign the bill due to the expected negative impacts on organizations involved in promoting democracy and human rights defense in Zimbabwe.
UN experts likewise urged Mangaguwa to reject the bill, saying the restrictions on the law “have a calm effect on civil society organisations, especially opposing voices.”
When the Senate passed the bill in October 2024, the Attorneys of Zimbabwe, a nonprofit for human rights organization, said the law “completely ignores provisions relating to associations declared in the guidelines for the guidelines on African Associations’ Rights regarding freedom and assembly.”
Mnangagwa is on several occasions where he threatened to banish groups that do not follow government policies or intervene in the country’s politics.
The Zimbabwean government is already trying to cut down on jobs for non-governmental organizations in the country. On January 22, 2023, the authorities announced that they had revoked the registrations of 291 non-governmental and civil society organizations. Labour and the Social Welfare Minister said the registration was withdrawn as the group was allegedly not submitted an audited account because it was reportedly not submitted because of funds raised from donors, ostensibly national security reasons or allegedly acting outside its mission.
Zimbabwe is a party to the international contracts on civil and political rights and the African Charter on the rights of humans and people, supporting its right to relevance and freedom of expression.
The African Committee on Human and People’s Rights provides guidelines on association freedom and parliamentary freedom. Furthermore, “(i) n litigation shall not be used to harass or intimidate the association that political authorities disapprove.”
Following the adoption of the law, the European Union announced that Zimbabwe had suspended funding for the government’s excellent governance initiative under a “structured dialogue framework” as it “did not support its own commitment under this process, particularly regarding the expansion of civic space.”
Sign up for the AllAfrica newsletter for free
Get the latest African news
success!
Almost finished…
You need to check your email address.
Follow the instructions in the email you sent to complete the process.
error!
There was a problem processing the submission. Please try again later.
Zimbabwe has more than US$21 billion in debt and bilateral and multilateral creditor arrears, and the EU is helping the country in its debt resolution process. This process, involving the US and the African Development Bank, identified judicial independence, freedom of associations and assembly, and the space of civil society, as part of the areas Zimbabwe needed to address its progress in debt resolution.
“Civil society laws will further threaten the already compromised rights to freedom of association and expression in Zimbabwe,” Nassa said. “Civil society groups don’t have to operate in fear that they might be shut down. Their staff were criminally charged with merely doing their work.”
