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This article participates on the following special index pages:
ZCTU National Labour Protest - Sept 13, 2006 - Index of articles
Statement
on the unlawful arrest and ill-treatment of the ZCTU
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum
September 15, 2006
The Zimbabwe
Human Rights NGO Forum condemns the arrest, detention, and savage
ill-treatment of members of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), and calls for their immediate
release.
180 members
of the ZCTU around the country were arrested on Wednesday, 13 September
2006, prior to their beginning peaceful
protest marches. In Harare, 15 members of the ZCTU, including
their senior management, among them the president, Lovemore Matombo,
vice-president, Lucia Matibenga, and secretary-general, Wellington
Chibebe, were violently arrested and taken into custody. Lawyers
acting for the ZCTU were denied access to their clients, and neither
were the lawyers able to get independent medical attention for them.
Subsequent reports, confirmed
by medical examination, validate the earlier reports, and it is
clear that Matombo, Matibenga, and Chibebe had been subjected to
serious torture, suffering severe injuries in the process. They
were transferred from Matapi Police Station to Harare Central Police
Station, where the Law and Order Section refused to accept their
custody due to their having been tortured and insisted on their
return to Matapi.
Further, elsewhere in
the country members of the ZCTU were arrested and it has been confirmed
that some of the members of the groups have been severely tortured
as well.
Since the ZCTU and other
groups announced that they would protest the economic mismanagement
of the country there have been intemperate and unwarranted statements
by the Zimbabwe Government that any dissent would be met with force.
These statements have been made against explicit undertakings by
the ZCTU and other groups that all protests would be peaceful and
constitutional. Statements threatening force have the effect of
encouraging the use of force by the security agencies, and are out
of keeping with responsive governance.
The Human
Rights NGO Forum has issued numerous statements condemning the
violent behavior of government agencies and the Zimbabwe Republic
Police in particular, as well as pointing out that it is out of
keeping with responsible government for members of government to
make statements threatening violence. It is clear from the evidence
before the Human Rights Forum that torture is rampant within the
ZRP and that persons in detention are at significantly greater risk
of being tortured. The Human Rights Forum recently issued a report
to this effect and an abbreviated copy was carried by The Standard
on 13 August 2006.
The Human Rights
Forum sought to bring the matter of police ill-treatment and torture
to the attention of the authorities through the release of this
report. As the Human Rights Forum has previously pointed out, torture
in Zimbabwe is both widespread and systemic, demanding both a national
and an international response. The Human Rights Forum demands the
release of all the detained members of the ZCTU, the immediate investigation
of all allegations of torture, and the prosecution of all those
guilty of torture.
Visit the Zimbabwe
Human Rights NGO Forum fact
sheet
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