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Coverage of court's criticism on brutal assault of ZCTU leaders
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-40
Monday October 2^nd – Sunday October 8^th 2006

THIS week the government-controlled media censored the court’s criticism on the failure by the police to investigate the brutal assault in police custody of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) leaders following the organization’s foiled demonstration against economic decline in the country.

This only appeared in the private media.

For example, Studio 7 (3 & 4/10), New Zimbabwe.com (4/10), The Financial Gazette (5/10) and Zimdaily (6/10) reported that magistrate William Bhila had criticized the police for failing to produce a report on the vicious beatings of the ZCTU leaders as ordered by the court three weeks previously.

They revealed that instead of submitting a report before the trial of the unionists, the police produced affidavits claiming that "only minimum force" had been used against the ZCTU leaders after "heavily resisting arrest".

Reportedly, the magistrate was obliged to defer the case to October 17 and instructed the police’s Criminal Investigations Department to conduct investigations, saying, "regular police were not taking the matter seriously".

In addition, the private media reported the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights disputing official claims that the unionists’ injuries were self-inflicted. The doctors’ group noted that its medical examination of the injured leaders revealed their injuries to be consistent with "torture" and "beatings with blunt objects, heavy enough to cause fractures to hands and arms and severe and multiple soft tissue injuries to the backs of the head, shoulders, arms, buttocks and thighs".

Again the government media ignored this.

Instead, The Herald and Chronicle (6/10) passively quoted Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Reuben Marumahoko insisting, "no one was assaulted in the police cells", adding that the unionists had "injured themselves while trying to resist arrest by jumping off moving vehicles".

Apart from suffocating the court’s censure of police conduct, the official media also remained silent on other cases of continued rights violations during the week.

Only the private media carried news of three incidents of rights abuses.

These included the arrest of university students and teachers’ union leaders and the eviction and demolition of Porta Farm settlers’ homes by Harare council authorities.

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