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NY Times February 28, 2011
Torture of Zimbabweans Is Reported
By CELIA W. DUGGER
JOHANNESBURG – The United Nations torture investigator, Juan E. Méndez,
has written the government of Zimbabwe to express concern about
allegations that state security agents assaulted the activists recently
detained and charged with treason after watching news broadcasts of the
democratic uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, he confirmed Monday.
A lawyer for the detainees told Mr. Méndez that a dozen of the 45
activists had been beaten with broomsticks, metal rods and blunt objects
on their bodies and the soles of their feet. They were tortured to force
them to testify for the state, and they have since been denied medical
care for their injuries, the lawyer said.
“Among the same group, six detainees received a series of lashes, which
were administered while they lay down on their stomachs,” wrote the
lawyer, Jared Genser, with the American non-profit group, Freedom Now,
which seeks the release of political prisoners.
Mr. Méndez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, said in an
email that he had not yet heard back from the government of Zimbabwe and
could make no further comment.
The police arrested the 45 activists, trade unionists and students on
Feb. 19 during a meeting in Harare called by Munyaradzi Gwisai, a
lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe’s law school, to discuss the
implications of the anti-authoritarian uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia
for Zimbabwe.
Prosecutors contend that Mr. Gwisai and the others were plotting to
overthrow the government led by President Robert Mugabe, 87, who has
been in power for 30 years. Lawyers for the accused say they were just
having an academic discussion.
Human rights groups and Mr. Mugabe’s political rivals in the Movement
for Democratic Change, which is part of a power-sharing government with
him and his party, ZANU-PF, say the harsh treatment of the detainees is
part of a broader escalation of violence, harassment and trumped up
charges against Mr. Mugabe’s critics and political opponents ahead of
elections ZANU-PF wants to hold later this year.
Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the M.D.C., said that more than 200 of
his party’s members have been arrested since the beginning of the year
alone, including ten members of Parliament, three of whom remain jailed.
Mr. Chamisa also denounced the detention of Mr. Gwisai and the 44 others.
“It’s all prosecution to persecute,” he said. “Only a government afraid
of its people and that has a guilty conscience would be in perennial
combat with its own citizens.”
In one of the most significant cases, the state indicated on Monday that
it would continue with its legal effort to keep an influential M.D.C.
member of Parliament, Douglas Mwonzora, and 23 villagers in jail on
charges of public violence, though a magistrate granted them bail a week
ago.
Mr. Mwonzora, a lawyer who has been detained for two weeks, is
co-chairman of the parliamentary committee overseeing the development of
a new constitution, which is supposed to help ensure that the next round
of elections are free and fair. The last presidential election, held in
2008, was discredited after widespread intimidation, torture and
killings of Mr. Mugabe’s political opponents.
The previous United Nations torture investigator, Manfred Nowak, went to
Zimbabwe in October 2009 to look into what he then called “credible and
serious allegations of human rights violations,” some of them dating to
the 2008 elections. But he was detained and ejected from the country.
Like Mr. Méndez, Mr. Nowak was undertaking his investigation amid
surging arrests of members of pro-democracy groups.
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