Click to expand Image People protest the proposed Zimbabwe constitutional amendment extending the presidential term,London, April 18, 2026. © 2026 Maynard Manyowa/News Images/NurPhoto via Reuters (Johannesburg) – Zimbabwean authorities have harassed, abducted, and arbitrarily detained student leaders protesting a proposed constitutional amendment to extend presidential terms, Human Rights Watch said today.Constitutional Amendment No 3 would extend the terms of office for the president and members of parliament from five to seven years, effectively postponing the 2028 elections until 2030. Student leaders affiliated with the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) mobilized young people to attend public consultations on the proposed amendment held across Zimbabwe.“Students who speak out to safeguard their country’s democracy should not face abduction, arrest, and ill-treatment,” said Idriss Ali Nassah, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities in Zimbabwe should reverse course and allow people to express their views freely without facing retaliation.”Human Rights Watch documented seven attacks against the student leaders.Munashe Dongonda, 25, ZINASU’s secretary general, and Denford Sithole, 22, attended a public consultation in Nketa suburb in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, on March 30. After Sithole spoke against the amendment, men in civilian clothes accosted him and Dongonda, accusing the students of “wanting to cause chaos.” Dongonda told Human Rights Watch that the men dragged him and two other students outside, beat them, and then forced Sithole into their vehicle, a white Toyota double-cabin, and drove off.Sithole said he suspected that the four men in the vehicle were members of the feared Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). He said the men threatened to kill him and drove to an office building where six other men, also in civilian clothes, joined in interrogating and assaulting him. He said one of them repeatedly hit him on the head with an empty wine bottle while others beat him. They accused him of working to overthrow the government and demanded to know who was funding the students opposing the amendment. They forced him to allow them to inspect his bank account records and demanded his parents’ home address.After about six hours, they took him to Bulawayo Central Police Station and told the police to “find something to charge him with.” Police charged Sithole with “disorderly conduct.” He paid a US$30 fine and was released after signing an “admission of guilt,” which Human Rights Watch has seen. Sithole, a final-year engineering student, is recovering from injuries from his abduction and torture. He has suspended his studies, left Bulawayo, and is in hiding after noticing he was under constant surveillance from suspected state security agents and fearing for his life.Tafara Magodora, 23, a student leader at the Bindura University of Science Education, was abducted on March 30 in Bindura, in Mashonaland Central province, about 90 kilometers northeast of Harare, the capital. He said that at around 9 a.m., he was on his way to organize transportation for students to attend a public consultation on the amendment when a white Toyota vehicle without number plates appeared, and three people in civilian clothes got out and surrounded him. They accused him of being on “a police wanted list since last year.” He said that when he demanded identification, they forced him into the car and beat him.After about an hour of driving around with him, they took him to Bindura Central Police Station, where officers accused him of “causing chaos at the university.” The police held him for two days, then charged him with assault and released him on bail. His next court appearance is on April 28. When he was released, Magodora said two suspected state security agents ordered him to leave Bindura for his own good, warning him that something would happen if he did not stop his activism. Magodora is also in hiding and has not attended class since.On April 14, police arrested Emmanuel Sitima, former president of ZINASU, and Takunda Mhuka, a ZINASU provincial leader, both 24. Based on their charge sheet seen by Human Rights Watch, they are accused of “malicious damage to property” for allegedly breaking a window in the home of the chairperson of the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and for distributing fliers reading “Save Zimbabwe Campaign, No to 2030.” “No to 2030” is a slogan opponents to the amendment have adopted. The value of the damaged property was set at $10. A court denied bail to Sitima and Mhuka and they remain in custody, with their next court appearance scheduled for April 24.Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights on April 15 reported that student leaders were “under siege” after police raided ZINASU’s offices in Harare. ZINASU National Coordinator Ashlegh Pfunye, 28, told Human Rights Watch that he viewed the raid as an attack on the broader student movement. “All we are doing is to exercise our democratic right to speak out against the proposed constitutional amendment, but we are being hunted down like criminals,” he said. “Some student leaders are in hiding and others have been suspended from university because of their activism opposing the amendment.”David Coltart, the mayor of Bulawayo and a former minister of education in the 2009-2013 Government of National Unity, told Human Rights Watch that targeting student leaders is meant to have a “chilling effect” on those opposing the amendment. “We have had students abducted and detained,” he said. “We have had to find safe houses for three student leaders who were being threatened after speaking out against the amendment.”Targeting the student leaders is part of a broader crackdown on perceived opponents to the amendment. In August 2025, police arrested three Midlands State University students, who are facing charges of subverting a constitutional government after allegedly distributing 12 fliers opposing the amendment. The three spent fourteen days in detention before being granted bail, while awaiting trial.In November 2025, two students, Marlvin Madanda, 23, and Lindon Zanga, 21, were reportedly abducted while campaigning on campus at the Chinhoyi University of Technology in the city of Chinhoyi, in central-northern Zimbabwe. They were found the next day after being allegedly assaulted and tortured. Police arrested them and charged them with “disorderly conduct.” They were scheduled to appear in court on April 23, 2026.Human Rights Watch has repeatedly expressed concern at the slow pace of human rights reform in Zimbabwe, including only minimal changes to repressive laws, a lack of security sector reform, and repression of civic and political activity.The actions by the Zimbabwean authorities violate a range of fundamental human rights protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to which Zimbabwe is a party, including prohibitions against arbitrary arrest and detention and inhuman or degrading treatment.“Zimbabwe should restore integrity to the constitutional amendment process by ending this crackdown against student leaders and activists and holding their abusers accountable,” Nassah said. “A constitution should not be amended on the back of violence, intimidation, abductions, and unjust arrests.”