Decline in state brutality – Forum

odist bishop into hiding.
The Forum, a coalition of 16 human rights NGOs which monitors in careful detail organised violence and torture by state agents, noted that cases usually increase during major political events such as elections and demonstrations by civic groups.
The monthly report said that on July 22 state security agents reportedly threatened pastors from Harare and Chitungwiza saying that that a meeting held at a Methodist Church in Highfield earlier in the day was illegal. Methodist Bishop Levee Kadenge is reported to have gone into hiding after he had been threatened with death by a CIO operative, who warned that they wanted to kill him.
“The Forum again deplores such unwarranted actions by state security agents and urges their members to desist from the practice of using death threats as a way of stifling the exercise of civil and political rights as enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe,” it added.
In other cases, a victim was arrested near Harvest House, taken to Harare Central Police Station, detained unlawfully for four days, beaten up and denied food, and released only when a court had established that he had no case to answer.
The Harare City Council gave about 30 residents of Matapi flats in Mbare notices of eviction. The residents said they were being evicted because they did not have “certificates of occupation”. They are either children of the deceased original leaseholders, or of people who have relocated to rural areas. The eviction notices were issued despite the fact that some of the residents had lived at Matapi for more than 10 years.- Own Correspondent