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Victims
of Organised Violence and Torture 2nd to 9th June 2003 (Period of National
Mass Action)
Zimbabwe Association
of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR)
June 25, 2003
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Over the past three
years medical personnel in Zimbabwe have observed the regular and increasingly
organised use of violence, including torture, by agents of the state and
ruling party.
This report includes
case summaries, with histories, examination findings and two photographs,
of incidents of violence inflicted during the week of the National Mass
Action 2nd-9th June 2003. Medical reports were obtained
and are available for at least 150 people who sought medical help for
injuries sustained as a result of state organised violence. Testimonies
taken during this time from many of the victims of violence in the high
density suburbs of Harare included stories of being invaded forcibly by
uniformed military personnel in the early hours of the morning, and then
being severely assaulted with blunt objects for periods of up to an hour
while being accused of having organised the "mass action". They
were then made to carry all their groceries, cash and valuables such as
cell phones to the waiting vehicles and surrender them to the invaders.
On June 4th more than forty people were examined in hospital
casualty departments following assault in this fashion in two adjacent
high-density suburbs. More than half of them required hospital admission
for extensive soft tissue injuries and fractures of the bones of their
hands and arms.(See Case Reports)
This pattern was repeated
throughout the week in different high-density suburbs, and continued during
the weekend after the mass action had finished. On the first day of the
action forty five university students required hospital treatment after
they had attempted to stage a march from the university to the centre
of the capital city Harare, and two people from a high density suburb
were admitted to hospital for gun shot wounds. The numbers reported here
represent a minimum figure, as many witnessed attacks did not result in
victims seeking help from hospitals, so that these incidents were not
recorded.
A further alarming
development occurred on Wednesday June 4th when there was an
intimidating presence of armed soldiers and police (uninvited by the hospital
authorities) in and around the Avenues Clinic.
Deliberately inflicted
violence of this nature is unacceptable to any degree but ZADHR is deeply
concerned at the extent in terms of numbers and severity of the injuries
documented. The apparent sense of impunity for their actions demonstrated
by the perpetrators is very disturbing. The most fundamental of Human
Rights are abused when people are injured in this way. ZADHR also condemns
in the strongest terms the interference with or intimidation of health
care personnel, and of patients attempting to access health care for their
injuries.
Visit the ZADHR fact
sheet
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