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Zimbabwe Film Shows Mugabe Election Rigging
Prison officer shot footage, passed it to Guardian
By Matt Cantor
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Posted Jul 5, 08 7:38 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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Film shot secretly by a Zimbabwean prison guard shows how President Robert Mugabe’s party used intimidation to earn votes in last week's run-off election, the Guardian reports. In the footage, ruling party members watch as prison officials fill out their ballots and inspect the results. At a rally, party members are shown telling people to feign illiteracy so Mugabe supporters could fill out their ballots for them.
The guard, who has fled Zimbabwe with his familiy, said he was motivated to make the film by the intensifying violence directed toward the opposition, including the murder of an uncle. “I had never seen that kind of violence before,” said the filmmaker, Sheperd Yuda. “How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, torture its people?" The film also shows an opposition party leader wearing leg irons in jail.