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Human
Rights Watch World Report 2007: Zimbabwe
Human Rights Watch
January 11, 2007
http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/zimbab14720.htm
Download the full Human
Rights Watch World Report 2007 (3.53MB)
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k7/wr2007master.pdf
Events
of 2006
Human rights violations in Zimbabwe continued unabated in 2006.
President Robert Mugabe's government maintained its assault
on the media, the political opposition, civil society activists,
and human rights defenders. Police and state agents continue to
arbitrarily arrest and detain peaceful activists, and the latter
half of the year saw a marked increase in reports of torture and
ill-treatment of government critics while in detention.
More than a
year after the government's program of mass evictions and
demolitions - Operation
Murambatsvina - tens of thousands of people continue to suffer
the catastrophic consequences. Despite numerous public statements
from the government that it would initiate a reconstruction program
to address the homelessness created by the evictions, few of the
people displaced by the evictions have received housing and many
remain in need of food, water, and other forms of assistance. In
addition, the government has repeatedly hindered efforts by the
United Nations to provide emergency shelter and has subjected many
of the victims to repeated forced evictions.
The humanitarian situation of the evictees and the HIV/AIDS situation
are among problems that are being exacerbated by acute food shortages
in the country. Food security is likely to remain precarious for
many vulnerable groups.
Freedom of Assembly
Peaceful protests in Zimbabwe are often violently disrupted by the
police. At various times in 2006 hundreds of peaceful demonstrators
including student activists, trade unionists, and human rights activists
were arrested. On several occasions, protestors were forced to lie
down and were brutally beaten by police with batons before their
arrest. On September 25, for example, police violently disrupted
a peaceful march by some 500 activists from the National
Constitutional Assembly in Harare. Riot police armed with batons
stopped the march, asked the activists to sit down and proceeded
to beat them one at a time with batons before ordering them to leave.
During the beatings a number of people panicked, leading to a stampede
that injured about 24 people, seven seriously.
The government has used repressive legislation to systematically
deny activists their right to peacefully assemble and associate.
For example, most of the activists arrested in 2006 were charged
with violating the Public
Order and Security Act (POSA), which gives police wide powers
regulating public gatherings, and is also loosely interpreted by
police. Tellingly, in many of the cases the charges were later dropped
and those arrested released without charge.
Freedom of Expression and Information
The government launched a new assault on the country's remaining
independent press through a wave of criminal prosecutions and arrests.
On January 24, 2006, the authorities brought charges of operating
a broadcasting service without a license against six trustees and
three employees of the privately owned radio station Voice
of the People. The charges were subsequently dismissed by the
High Court. In the same month, the government-appointed Media and
Information Commission (MIC) threatened to cancel the license of
the Financial Gazette, a privately-owned newspaper, if it did not
retract a story that questioned the commission's independence.
On January 29 the MIC refused to renew the accreditation of 15 journalists
working for the Zimbabwe Independent, another privately-owned newspaper,
until the paper retracted a similar story.
Despite condemnation from civil society, in July the government
introduced in Parliament the Interception
of Communications Bill, which seeks to give extraordinary powers
to Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organization, the Commissioner
of Police, and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority to intercept citizens'
phone calls and emails without credible safeguards. The bill is
currently under review by the parliamentary Legal Committee. The
Suppression
of Foreign and International Terrorism Bill, gazetted in March
but withdrawn after the parliamentary Legal Committee found some
provisions to be unconstitutional (and pending resubmission with
revisions at this writing), has raised fears similar to those arising
from the Interception of Communications Bill about its potential
use in silencing government critics.
Torture and Ill-Treatment in Detention
Torture and ill-treatment in Zimbabwe's police cells is rife.
The government has taken no clear action to halt the rising incidence
of torture and ill-treatment of opposition supporters and civil
society activists while in the custody of the police or intelligence
services.
In a shocking example of police torture and ill treatment, 15 members
of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions were arrested and brutally assaulted
by police at Matapi police station following peaceful protests on
September 13 against poor working conditions. The unionists reported
that a group of five police officers beat them with fists and batons,
kicked them, banged their heads against the wall, and verbally abused
and threatened them. They were initially denied medical treatment
and access to their lawyers for 24 hours but were later taken to
a hospital where some were found to have serious injuries such as
fractured limbs. The High Court in Harare ordered an immediate investigation,
but at this writing it was unclear whether the police would comply.
After the incident President Mugabe expressed approval for the actions
of the police, stating that those who protested in the street deserved
to be "thoroughly beaten."
The authorities have also targeted student activists and in some
cases subjected them to police torture and ill-treatment while in
custody. In May 2006 the authorities reacted to a spate of student
protests against unpopular government polices with mass arrests
and violence. For example, on May 29 police arrested student leader
Promise Mkwanazi and detained him at a police station in the northeastern
town of Bindura for five days without charge. Each night a group
of three or four policemen stripped Mkwanazi naked, shackled him
with his hands between his legs so he could not move, and beat him
severely with batons; they also threatened to kill him. They accused
him of belonging to the opposition and of trying to overthrow the
government.
Human Rights Defenders
The authorities intensified their attacks on human rights defenders
and lawyers in an attempt to silence their condemnation of the government's
poor human rights record. Government officials routinely accuse
human rights groups of being supporters of the opposition and of
receiving funds from western donors whom the government accuses
of trying to destabilize the country. Human rights defenders and
lawyers are constantly subjected to harassment, arbitrary arrests,
and attacks by the police, intelligence agents and government officials.
In May two human rights lawyers from the organization Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights were threatened by supporters of the
ruling ZANU-PF party and state agents when they attempted to represent
students arrested by the police for protesting the high cost of
student fees.
Hundreds of members of the women's organization Women of Zimbabwe
Arise were arrested throughout the country in 2006 during peaceful
protests against the worsening social, economic, and human rights
situation. Scores of the organization's members were subjected
to ill-treatment while in custody.
HIV/AIDS
Although the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate has dropped, the HIV/AIDS
epidemic in Zimbabwe remains critical. The government's abusive
practices such as Operation Murambatsvina as well as inadequate
health and social welfare policies have contributed to the denial
of access to healthcare for hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans
living with HIV/AIDS: some 350,000 of the 1.6 million people carrying
the virus are in immediate need of life-saving antiretroviral drugs
and another 600,000 are in need of care and support. Such policies
and practices risk undermining the progress that the government
has achieved thus far in addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Key International Actors
President Mugabe has persistently responded with defiance and at
times contempt to attempts to address Zimbabwe's interrelated
political, human rights, and humanitarian crises by international
partners such as South Africa and other Southern African Development
Community (SADC) countries. There is little consensus internationally
about the way forward in dealing with the crises. The South African
government remains firmly entrenched in its position of quiet diplomacy,
while European Union member states and the United States have maintained
targeted sanctions against government officials but have done little
else.
Recent attempts to solve the political crisis in Zimbabwe by UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and SADC member countries have largely
failed. A planned visit by Annan in January 2006 to investigate
the situation in the aftermath of the evictions did not take place.
Instead, at the July summit of the African Union Annan was forced
to step aside and allow former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa
to deal with the crisis, at Mugabe's insistence. Little clarity
exists about what form Mkapa's efforts will take.
Zimbabwe's
humanitarian crisis has been worsened by the reluctance of western
donors to provide direct humanitarian assistance to the government
of Zimbabwe. More worryingly, donors have failed to heed calls for
further funding of UN humanitarian assistance programs. For example,
in October 2006 the World Food Programme declared that it was cutting
food aid to Zimbabwe by two-thirds because funding for food assistance
to Zimbabwe was running out.
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