….As ROHR visits Gandhi and Kisimusi Dhlamini at Harare clinic
Zimbabwe Prisons can be described as death traps. The conditions inside them do not come close to those suitable for human habitation. They are a complete manifestation of the highest echelons in human rights violations and it is painful if not disgraceful that inmates and detainees are treated like aliens and second class citizens who are lucky to even be given crumbs for a meal. We are outraged.
On 31 March 2009,South African Broadcasting Corporation special assignment program captured the extent of the holocaust in the prisons through a graphic video showing inmates who looked more like living skeletons, visibly suffering from severe malnutrition related conditions, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
The horrendous conditions of the prisons and the conduct of the Zimbabwe Prison service, under the headship of the outspoken Retired Major General Paradzayi Zimondi remain a contentious issue.
Our UK partner, the Zimbabwe Vigil has prepared a petition to Zimbabwe’s neighbors: “We call upon the Southern African Development Community – as guarantors of the Zimbabwe power-sharing agreement – to put pressure on the new Zimbabwean government of national unity to stop the blatant abuse of human rights of prisoners in Zimbabwe who are dying of starvation, disease and torture.”
ROHR Zimbabwe president Ephraim Tapa said in an address at Zimbabwe independence celebrations in United Kingdom that the experience in the prisons can be likened to the Jewish holocaust under the Nazi regime. “They can’t feed them, clothe them . . . . They are treated worse than pigs or dogs. Whoever is in power we must have our human rights.” (Ephraim Tapa on 18 April 2008).
ROHR Zimbabwe joins the rest of the world in advocating for immediate improvement of the lives of people living in the jails across the country. Since 2000 the living conditions at prisons have deteriorated to alarming levels and the apparent inadequate provision of food, proper sanitation, health facilities and drugs has exposed inmates to various illness and diseases such as malnutrition and pellagra that killed 23 people in 2007.
About Torture and harassment of detainees
It is one thing for prison conditions to be inhuman, and yet another for the Government to be responsible for all the reported cases of torture and harassment prisoners and detainees have been subjected to. We wish to put it on record that Human rights are universal and everyone is entitled to enjoy these. Prisoners are not an exception. Jestina Mukoko, Director of Zimbabwe peace project, who was once abducted and detained by the ZANU PF Government in December, recalled instances where she was tortured on several counts and denied access to medical treatment and drugs.
Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights prohibits and outlaws torture to be excercised by member states of the African Union.
Solidarity visit for Ghandi Mudzingwa and Kisimusi Dhlamini at Harare clinic….
On Friday 24 April 2009 a ROHR Zimbabwe delegation led by the Secretary General Tichanzii Gandanga and the Programs Director Clifford Hlatywayo paid a solidarity visit to the detained Movement for Democratic Change activists Gandhi Mudzingwa and Kisimusi Dhlamini at Avenues clinic.
The visit was particularly aimed at getting information from the two detainees on the how they endured in the deadly prisons during the time they were closed up. Mudzingwa and Dhlamini have been tortured severely while in detention on charges banditry and insurgency with the aim of overthrowing the government.
Torture which can be defined as causing severe pain and suffering, physically or mentally for such purposes as obtaining information or a confession. Article 2 of The Convention against Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, says, “Each state party shall take effective, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture”.
Mudzingwa and Dhlamini were granted bail on Friday 17 April only to be re-arrested later after the Attorney General used his powers to reverse the bail that had been granted them. Gandanga expressed shock about the inhuman treatment the MDC security chiefs received whilst in custody.
ROHR Zimbabwe’s urges the Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa to be serious…
ROHR Zimbabwe is outraged by the casual way in which the Government of Zimbabwe responded to the damning video. We quote the response and conduct of the Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who was also the lead negotiator for ZANU PF during the interparty negotiations for the inclusive Government on this matter. The “honorable” Minister in his wisdom had the audacity to call the documentary by SABC a ‘fraud’ and that it was taken from another country in Africa. This position fails to reconcile the fact that the documentary cost the freedom and jobs of three prison officials from the Beitbridge prison. Thabiso Nyathi (35), Siyai Muchechedzi (35) and Thembinkosi Nkomo (28) were arrested in Gwanda for allegedly smuggling the SABC investigative journalists into the prison. The trio is being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.
We call for an increased measure of seriousness, maturity and sincerity on the Minister’s part, and that he should desist from blocking s attempts by independent civic and humanitarian organizations to tour the prisons to assess the level of human rights and humanitarian deficits.
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