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My ordeal with the police
Tinashe Chimedza
April 24, 2004

At around 17h45 on Thursday 22 April, I arrived at the Mt Pleasant Hall with another speaker, M Chivosa and there were between 150-200 students gathered outside the hall. On inquiring. I was told that police had banned the meeting because there was no application for the meeting under POSA. I then approached the police officers to inquire what was going on. As I was doing this, two security guards from the UZ shouted to the police saying - bata uyu, (catch that one), he is one of the speakers - the police officers advanced aggressively towards me despite the fact that I was not running away.

The police asked me to show my ID. As I was about to produce my ID the police details advanced towards me saying that I was breaching POSA and immediately started assaulting me in the face, a provocation which I found highly unwarranted. I attempted to block the fists and punches and in the process i hit back at an officer who had started clapping me - despite the fact that I was alone and the police could have arrested me without any difficulties. I found it very contemptuous that they did not stop with this but instead they started assaulting me.

I was then handcuffed, pushed on the ground and dragged to a secluded room by the police officers. All the time I was being severely assaulted on my back and hands by open hands, fists and police boots. In the room, I was made to squat with my hands behind my back and the police officers took turns in assaulting me. After this I was pushed on my stomach and was assaulted by broomsticks and boots. My head was banged on the floor routinely until I nearly passed out. Despite the fact that I was bleeding profusely from the mouth, and was handcuffed, the police did not stop.

For the next five minutes, I was to lie on my back face up and they continued assaulting me. They were beating my face with police boots, which resulted in one of my tooth was broken and two others are shaking and displaced from their positions. I was still bleeding and the police officers were threatening to urinate in my mouth. They said that after they were through they would hand me over to the "LOMA" and CIO for proper sorting out. One officer kept on saying "this mfana" needs electricity on his genitals so that he behaves properly.

At this time a plain clothes police detail who looked senior stopped the others and said, chiwiyorau pekumberi. I was forced to stand despite that my knees could not hold since they had been knocked again and again. At this time Otto Saki, a lawyer from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) was denied the right to see me and ascertain why I had been arrested. I was then shoved and beaten on the back in to a waiting police defender that took me to Marlborough Police Station.

At the station I lay motionless and could not turn or sit as my buttocks were severely beaten. The police left me bleeding from the nose and mouth until the lawyers came and requested for an ambulance. At this time, I had severe cuts on my mouth. I could not speak for the next four hours until we got to the hospital, where I was placed under 24 hour armed surveillance by the police.

In the evening on the second day of my hospital detention things seemed to change. First, in the afternoon rather than one police detail there were suddenly three, all crammed up in my little room with zero privacy. Late in the evening the three were placed with one police detail armed with an FN rifle to guard over me, an unarmed human rights defender immobilised with pain. He watches everywhere I turn, from going to the toilet or attempting to make calls. All in all, I have been guarded by five police officers within 48 hours.

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