HARARE - American music star, Akon, who performed in front of a 30 000 plus crowd at the National Sports Stadium on Sunday morning gave the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) a lesson in human rights and freedom of expression.

During his three day visit, he humbled the usually overzealous police by insisting that he did not want them as part of his security team.

He even ordered them off his convoy as he walked around the streets of Harare meeting ordinary Zimbabweans.

Akon made it clear at the show that he was not happy with the conduct of the ZRP officers who were roughing up people and raining batons on them.

Immediately after he got on stage in the early hours of Sunday, Akon started by telling the overzealous police officers to “stop it.”

“Police stop swinging those batons onto my fans,” said an enraged Akon repeatedly.

“I want to meet with my fans so move the barricades forward and let them come closer.”

He later threw himself into the crowd straight off the stage and also got into a glass balloon and conducted a crowd scanning exercise, a move which has made his shows around the world popular.

Jamaican dancehall king Sean Paul who shared the stage with Akon on the night also weighed in on the issue of human rights in Zimbabwe. He kept on reminding Zimbabweans to continue fighting for their human rights and used his now famous beliefs in freedom of expression to rally the strong crowd to fight for human rights.

“Hello Zimbabwe, those who value human life can I have your hands up,” he said as he psyched up the thousands of fans who packed into the National Sports Stadium.

“We have to fight for our rights Zimbabwe.”

He later invoked the liberation spirit when he sung Bob Marley’s song Zimbabwe.

“I am going to sing the song done by a man whom I respect so much and who has had much influence in my career and the man loved Zimbabwe,” said Paul, before belting out the rendition of Bob Marley’s song, Zimbabwe.

The song which was released by Marley in 1980 as a special independence dedication for Zimbabwe, talks about the need to free Zimbabwe of  oppression, human rights violations and also encourages

Zimbabweans to fight for their rights.

Some of the lyrics of the song say:  “Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny, and in this judgement there is no partiality. So arm in arms, with arms, we'll fight this little struggle, 'Cause that's the only way we can overcome our little trouble.

“Brother, you're right, you're right, you’re right, you're right, you're so right!

We gon' fight (we gon' fight), we'll have to fight (we gon' fight), We gonna fight (we gon' fight), fight for our rights.”

Although the song was done some 30 years ago with a different meaning ,it still remains relevant to present day Zimbabwe where human rights violations and personal freedoms are still to be recognised.

About 500 people were killed during the 2008 presidential poll violence.

Just last week a group of squatters in the Borrowdale area had their houses razed in a move that invoked the memories of Operation Murambatsvina of 2005 which left thousands of people homeless.

Blessing Chimuti who attended the show told the Daily News that what the duo did showed that they had done their homework on Zimbabwe.

“Its not by accident that the two guys spoke about human rights, they have been too many parts of the world and seen suffering, so just like Zimbabweans they felt they have a duty to encourage us to keep fighting for a better Zimbabwe,” said Chimuti.

By Entertainment reporter

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