The pressure group, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), Thursday hailed Amnesty International (AI) for the launch of the organization’s new annual report under the theme 'leading from the streets'. In a statement, WOZA said its leader, Jenni Williams, travelled to London to witness the launch of the report held at Amnesty’s headquarters. During the launching ceremony, AI’s Secretary General, Salil Shetty, reportedly said that last year was “a year of protests where ordinary people sent a clear message that it is no longer business as usual for tyranny and injustice.”

However, Shetty was quick to add that leaders failed to listen and people’s demands fell on deaf ears.

The AI’s Secretary General further stated that leaders responded with use of “excessive force”, adding, “it was a year where dictators were removed but not dictatorships.”

WOZA leader, Jenni Williams, re-echoed Shetty's remarks, saying that the way the regimes responded to peaceful citizens all over the world was not new to Zimbabweans.

“The Zimbabwean Government has practiced such repression on us,” she alleged.

She stated that Amnesty annual report drives home a realization that citizens are fast losing hope in election processes as a vehicle to bring change.

“What citizens cannot seem to do with the ballot they are trying to do by protests or by ‘voting with their feet’”, she added.

WOZA is a pressure group that has held several street protests in Zimbabwe.

Its leaders and members have repeatedly run into trouble with the country’s authorities who mostly deem WOZA’s protests as illegal.

Pana 24/05/2012