HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – In Zimbabwe, robust police responses to protests aren’t usually captured on video or are quickly deleted at the demand of authorities. But not last weekend, when footage showed an anti-government protester shouting in the lobby of a luxury hotel and haranguing police until they move in and drag him away.
The confrontation revealed the frustrations of many in a country where the economy continues to plummet.
The video that emerged over the weekend shows, from start to chaotic finish, a protest by activists angry at Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko’s 18-month stay in a $400-a-night hotel suite in the capital, Harare.
The majority of Zimbabwe’s citizens survive on just a dollar a day, the official statistics agency says.
“He is refusing to stay in a house worth $3.5 million,” activist Sten Zvorwadza says in the video, shot by a journalist with a local newspaper group.