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Zanu (PF) members attack teachers in Harare
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
February 20, 2008

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) condemns, in no uncertain terms the brutal attack on nine (9) members of the Progressive Teachers' Union (PTUZ) at noon on 19th February 2008 at the ZANU (PF) Harare Province Headquarters at the 4th Street Bus Terminus in Harare.

Members of the PTUZ were engaged in a peaceful 'Save our Education' campaign in the streets of Harare. When they approached the 4th Street Bus terminus they were apprehended by, as yet unidentified¹, youths from the ZANU (PF) building. The 9 teachers were taken inside the building and subjected to all manner of brutalization including but not limited to assaults with clenched feet, open palms, booted feet and assaults with iron rods. Female teachers among the victims were subjected to verbal abuse of the most degrading and inhuman nature. One female teacher was stripped naked in full view of her male colleagues and assailants alike and had her genital area repeatedly trampled upon. During the course of these assaults and inhuman and degrading treatment, the victims were being accused of being MDC activists and were ordered to sing political songs ridiculing and insulting opposition leaders.

It is alleged that an anonymous call was made to the ZRP and it immediately reacted and descended upon the ZANU (PF) headquarters aforementioned. The Police took all the victims to Harare central police station and laid them along an office corridor at CID Law & Order Section where they were still lying and writhing in visible pain at the time lawyers deployed to attend to them eventually found them at around 1400hrs. Lawyers were initially denied access by THE OFFICER IN CHARGE OF CID LAW & ORDER SECTION HARARE CENTRAL POLICE STATION namely; one DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR MANJENGWA. One lawyer was forcibly escorted from the victims as he tried to do a physical count of them and hand-over medication to one of the victims MR. RAYMOND MAJONGWE. Offers to ferry the victims to a hospital were turned down by the police. The victims were eventually taken to what was initially declared to be Parirenyatwa General Hospital in an open B1800 Mazda pick-up truck notwithstanding their dire medical condition. This was now at around 15:00hrs. Lawyers and other teachers with medication and concern on the plight of the victims followed to what eventually turned out to be Harare Central Hospital in Southerton much further away from the nearer and more convenient Avenues Clinic requested by the victims and suggested by their lawyers and fellow teachers.

Upon arrival at Harare Central Hospital at around 15:45hrs the victims could not be treated on account of several reasons ranging from the overcrowded casualty room, shortage of staff and broken down equipment such as the X-Ray machine which had allegedly run out of film. Negotiations with the Police to take the victim to an alternative medical facility were fruitless as the Police guard indicated that it had to wait for instructions from superiors. Eventually the superiors came in person and the victims were eventually taken to the Avenues Clinic where they were all admitted.

Lawyers returned to CID Law & Order to ascertain why the victims who had been viciously assaulted were being treated like accused persons yet they were in fact or apparently the victims in a most heinous assault case. The Officer Commanding CID Law & Order one CHIEF SUPERINTENDANT MADZINGO advised that in fact the injured teachers were complainants in a case of their assault but also accused persons in an alleged case of contravening sections of the Criminal Law (Codification & Reform) Act [Chapter 10:28] outlawing the distribution of pamphlets, placards etc in public places and or buildings.

Meanwhile and at the Avenues Clinic and as at the period extending from 19:00hrs to 22:00 hrs lawyers had to attend again as Police descended on the casualty ward and hinted at taking into their custody all persons discharged from the hospital with a view to detaining them at Harare Central Police Station. As at 22:00hrs no one had been taken into Police custody though the latter maintained a visible presence.

Of particular concern in this case to ZLHR is the apparent harassment of legitimate human rights defenders who were simply airing the dilapidated state of the country's education sector.

It is of further concern to ZLHR that the Police would seek to turn complainants into accused persons in a situation where they are seriously injured and had been denied access to urgent life saving medical attention.

It is further disturbing to note that the officers at Law & Order are unrepentant in their erroneous reading of the law regarding access by lawyers and indeed medical practitioners and relatives to detained persons. The Law & Order section persists with its misguided position that lawyers, doctors and relatives can only see detainees at the pleasure of the police and in any event after having been so summoned by the police. This is a disturbingly wrong interpretation of the law and the Law & Order section would do well to familiarize themselves with Section 13 (k) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (1980) (as amended in October 2007).

In this respect, ZLHR urges the Police to be stern and professional in dealing with such incidents of unprovoked political violence especially in cases where it is directed towards innocent civilians.

ZLHR urges the ZRP to recall the inviolability of human life, the integrity of the person and the right not to be treated in an inhuman and degrading manner by either denying injured persons access to medication and or medical attention/taking injured complainants and or accused persons to ill equipped and or understaffed medical facilities well out of time.

ZLHR challenges the ZRP to ensure that, as promised in the Commissioner General's pre-election message to the nation, all perpetrators of political violence are dealt with in terms of the laws of Zimbabwe regardless of political inclinations. Anything less than the above amounts to a travesty of justice which also has the unfavourable consequence of bring the administration of justice into disrepute a well as eroding public confidence in the law enforcement agencies of Zimbabwe in particular and justice officials in general.

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1 At the time of this release two suspects were in police custody at Harare Central Police Station Law & Order Section but their names had not yet been released to the complainants or their legal representatives

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