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Summary on politically-motivated human rights and food-related violations - August 2010
Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP)
September 22, 2010

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Summary

THE human rights situation in Zimbabwe continued to deteriorate during the month of August with politically motivated violations continuing to be recorded from all the country's ten provinces. Most of the violations recorded during the month under review were tied to the ongoing Constitutional making process.

The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) monitors scattered across the country have reported an upsurge in the number of intimidation and harassment cases related to the ongoing Constitutional Parliamentary Select Committee (COPAC)'s outreach programme. The highest numbers of violations were recorded in the Manicaland Province which had 199 cases followed by Mashonaland East with 182.

Recurrent experiences of violence across the Manicaland province has resulted in outreach meetings being cancelled in most of the districts including Chimanimani, Chipinge and Nyanga.

Most rural communities have been systematically harassed and intimidated during the COPAC outreach meetings and in particular where villagers are grouped under their headmen during meetings for ease of identification of those who stray from agreed positions. It has also been noted that chiefs and headmen are conducting roll calls after meetings.

Another form of violations has been in the form of allowing only known party supporters to contribute during the COPAC outreach meetings and the use of the opening prayers to intimidate and outline party constitutional positions on the constitutional Talking Points.

It has been noted that the high figures of intimidations and harassment during the month under review were arrived at where large groups of people's rights were violated before, during and after the COPAC outreach meetings.

Freedom of speech continues to be covertly suppressed through various means that include verbal threats, intimidation, coaching, assaults, presence of state security agents at outreach meetings, and by misinforming the public that recording equipment will be used to identify individuals who were making contributions that were contrary to declared party positions.

For the other most volatile provinces of Masvingo, Midlands and Mashonaland Central the levels of violations remained almost constant with sporadic incidents of physical violence in terms of assaults being recorded.

Violations have also continued in areas where the COPAC outreach teams would have already finished their consultations in the form of interrogations and harassments where people are being asked to explain why they were making contributions which are contrary to ZANU PF's position on the Constitution.

The main perpetrators of the violations recorded in August have been war veterans, ZANU PF youth militias, chiefs, police officers and serving members of the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA).

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