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Statement
to the 42nd Ordinary Session of the African Commission for Human
and Peoples' Rights
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
November 16, 2007
Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights (ZLHR) congratulates the incoming Chairperson of
the African Commission for her election and the elected and re-elected
commissioners and wish you all a fruitful tenure in office.
Since the last
session of the African Commission in Ghana Zimbabwe has continued
to experience violations of human rights. Indeed these violations
have continued to take place despite the state's celebration
of what it has deemed progress in the SADC initiated Dialogue between
the ruling ZANU PF party and two opposition Movement of Democratic
Change (MDC) factions, a dialogue led by South Africa's President
Mr. Thabo Mbeki. The reality thus for many Zimbabweans and human
rights defenders has not been one of celebration but of continued
human rights violations. The rights to freedoms of association,
assembly and expression; to protection of the law and access to
justice; right to protection from torture and indeed economic rights
still remain a mere aspiration and not realization for the people
of Zimbabwe.
In
May lawyers seeking to represent the rights of members of the
political opposition who faced allegation of committing various
criminal offences, namely Mr. Alec Muchadehama and Mr. Andrew Makoni,
were detained in police custody, and illegally so in light of a
High Court order granting their release. Members of the Law Society
of Zimbabwe also became victims of physical assault and denial of
their right to assembly and expression as they were violently stopped
by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police ("ZRP") from
demonstrating peacefully in solidarity with their two detained colleagues.
Since then lawyers seeking to represent their clients, mostly human
rights defenders or political activists, have been subjected to
harassment, threats and assaults by police officers at police stations.
In October Mr. Tafadzwa Mugabe, a lawyer with ZLHR, was assaulted
by a high ranking police officer for merely seeking to have access
to his detained clients. His efforts to have Superintendent Tendere
of Harare Central Police Station prosecuted have remained frustrated
by members of the same ZRP who have still not completed their investigations
and taken the matter before the criminal courts.
Other human
rights defenders, namely women activists, student activists, labour
activists have continued to have their rights violated. In June
almost 200 members of the Women
of Zimbabwe Arise ("WOZA") where arrested, beaten
and detained in Bulawayo for seeking to demonstrate their concerns
over the ongoing SADC Dialogue which did not seem to among other
things place as a critical agenda the continued violation of human
rights.
Student activists
have also not been spared from the continuing human rights violations.
In June two students were abducted and tortured by members of the
Zimbabwe National Army ("ZNA") in Braeside, Harare.
In a move reminiscent with Operation
Murambatsvina in 2005 the University
of Zimbabwe, on June 9th, decided to summarily and forcefully
evict almost 4500 students from their halls of residence leaving
them in the open for days, with female students suffering the indignity
of sexual exploitation from so called well wishers. The Vice Chancellor
of the University of Zimbabwe refused to allow the students back
into their halls of residence despite a High court order granted
by consent stating otherwise.
In September,
while the state and political players from the ruling party and
opposition political parties celebrated their consensual passing
of Constitutional
Amendment No. 18 through the House of Assembly as a political
breakthrough arising from the SADC Dialogue, the same breakthrough
could not be claimed for the states respect for human rights. Indeed
at the time that the state celebrated its breakthrough members of
the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Union were arrested, detained and assaulted
while in police custody for seeking to hold a peaceful stay away
to express their concern over the continued deteriorating condition
of workers due to the ever crumbling economy. Certainly, the economic
rights of Zimbabweans in general have been undermined further by
the Government of Zimbabwe's impromptu decision to force the
business community, through arrests and threats, to cut the prices
of their goods and services. This has led to the scarcity and inaccessibility
of such good and services, with many Zimbabweans having to travel
as far as South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique to access the same.
Indeed and sadly
so, while the state has claimed political victories in the past
months it has on the other hand maintained its disregard for and
attacks on human rights and the rule of law, with such laws as the
Criminal
Law (Codification & Amendment) Act; Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy Act; Public
Order and Security Act remaining in force and used to violate
human rights and undermine the rule of law. Through these laws human
rights violations against human rights defenders continued to be
violated with impunity while the state and its institutions continued
to disregard and exercise contempt towards court orders directing
against such violations.
ZLHR therefore
humbly calls upon this honourable Commission to continue to urge
the Government of Zimbabwe to not only focus its attention on the
political aspects of the SADC Dialogue but to remember and fulfill
its obligations to respect, promote and protect human rights and
indeed to ensure that any dialogue or process cannot be achieved
or made successful without the realization of human rights and the
rule of law by the state and its institutions.
Visit the ZLHR
fact
sheet
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