Bulawayo – Police in Zimbabwe’s second biggest city of Bulawayo have barred a Pentecostal church from conducting services at a police station because it has whites within its congregation, Zim Online has learnt. President Robert Mugabe’s government, facing international criticism over its human rights policies and violent seizure of white land, has since 2000 pursued a hard-line anti-white crusade against the few remaining whites in the country. There are just about 20 000 whites in Zimbabwe down from the 80 000 who were there at independence in 1980. Church members who spoke to Zim Online said trouble began two weeks ago after a white member, Chris Branfield who was accompanied by his family, attended church at the largely black New Christian Assembly church at Ross Camp in the city. The five white church members were barred from leaving the camp for close to three hours and during which they were interrogated by a senior police officer. A junior police officer who witnessed the harassment said: “The scene was just not good. We knew that the organisation (police force) has always been suspicious of whites but little did we think that that stance would affect even church members.”

Elliot Chuma, a pastor with the church confirmed the incident saying it had left everyone baffled. “We have been conducting our services here for more than six months because some of our members are police officers. At no point were we told that there should be a specific racial composition in our church and I invited my friends (the white family) to the church, not knowing that I would subject them to such an embarrassment,” he said. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he had not been briefed over the incident but said the police did not stand in the way of those pursuing spiritual matters. “We embrace Christianity and would not stand in the way of those worshipping their God. We also do not have anything against anybody’s race,” said Bvudzijena. Mugabe accuses whites of being the brains behind the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party that has posed the greatest challenge to his 26-year rule.

From Zim Online (SA), 5 September
Source: WWW.ZwNews.Com