Most shops and banks closed and the streets of Harare were deserted Wednesday as Zimbabweans staged a national protest against the government.
Zimbabweans largely stayed indoors in a national “stay-away” day known as Shutdown Zimbabwe 2016.
Activists called for citizens to stay away from work, hoping to force the government to address the nation’s economic meltdown.
The shutdown comes as teachers, doctors and nurses strike to protest unpaid June salaries.
President Robert Mugabe, 92, has ruled the country since it gained independence in 1980.
The nation’s economy collapsed in February 2009 and the currency became virtually worthless. Soon after, the country adopted a multicurrency system dominated by the U.S. dollar.
On Wednesday, the empty streets created a sense of unease. “We stayed home because we feared that if [we] walk to town, we might find it difficult walking back or get stranded there given that on Monday it turned violent,” said Silas Nharo, who lives about 30 kilometers southeast of Harare, the nation’s capital.
At most schools, pupils could be seen playing unattended, because teachers declined to report for duty.
“Our patience has been strained. Our members are hungry and angry. Government cannot say it is broke given its high level [of] opulence, while our members are suffering,” said Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe police said Wednesday that about 50 people had been arrested in connection with the protests. That included an Australian national, police said.
There were reports of sporadic violence, with teargas and some looting in Harare on Monday. On Friday, a warehouse was burned down on Zimbabwe’s border with South Africa in protest of recent import restrictions on basic goods. Zimbabwe, once a breadbasket of southern Africa, now depends mainly on imports.
The man behind the current wave of protests is believed to be Evan Mawarire, who a few weeks ago started the #ThisFlag movement.
He told local radio that he started the #ThisFlag movement to get Zimbabweans to unite against “rampant and runaway corruption by government and government ministers.”
“We have called for a complete shutdown of the country today in protest of the government that has completely failed to look after its citizenry‚ and failed to listen to the demands of its citizenry‚” he said of Wednesday’s protest.
The protests appeared to be organized via the messaging app WhatsApp. Some on social media complained that the messaging app was blocked for a few hours Wednesday morning. The Media Institute of Southern Africa in Zimbabwe later said it was “gravely concerned with the apparent disabling of the WhatsApp platform.”
“MISA-Zimbabwe condemns this brazen violation of citizens’ right to freely express themselves and access information through communication platforms of their choice as guaranteed in the constitution,” it added.
Ahead of Wednesday’s protest, Information, Communication and Technology Minister Supa Mandiwanzira warned citizens against sending inflammatory messages on social media.
“It’s important for everybody to understand that anything you post on social media or over the top services can be traced back to who started them,” said Mandiwanzira in the state-owned Daily Chronicle.
“Therefore we warn people to be responsible and ensure that the messages that they send out will not find them afoul of the law. We expect that people must be responsible when using social media. It must not be used to threaten other people or to send subversive messages.”
He added: “We don’t want the few who abuse it to send revenge porn, child pornography, hate and violent messages to spoil the use of social media for the majority who use it positively.”
Late Wednesday, Minister of Home Affairs Ignatious Chombo appeared on national television saying “a third force” was behind the recent protests.
In 2002 the United States and European Union imposed travel sanctions on Mugabe and his senior Zanu PF officials after reports of human rights abuses and vote rigging during elections.
