Doctors say labour leaders’ tortured

icials, said in a statement on Wednesday that injuries sustained by the labour leaders were consistent with torture, adding it would submit a report to court to prove the police assaulted and tortured the union officials.
At least 29 ZCTU leaders were last month heavily assaulted and tortured by the police for calling protests by workers for more pay and better living conditions. The union leaders – who President Robert Mugabe last week said deserved to be beaten by the police – incurred serious injuries including broken ribs, arms and legs.
The police are however denying assaulting or torturing the ZCTU officials, telling a court earlier this week that the unionists were injured after they tried to jump off a moving police truck.
The ZADHR said injuries observed on ZCTU officials were “consistent with beatings with blunt objects, heavy enough to cause fractures (nine fractures in seven individuals) to hands and arms and severe and multiple soft tissue injuries to the backs of the head, shoulders, arms, buttocks and thighs (29 individuals).
“Soft tissue injuries to the soles of the feet (eight individuals), are also consistent with beatings, and correspond to the torture method called Falanga, which can leave a torture victim having difficulty with normalwalking for the rest of his or her life.”
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena was not immediately available to respond to assertions by doctors that the ZCTU officials were tortured.
Police officer in charge of crime prevention in Harare, Joel Shasha Tenderere on Tuesday claimed the ZCTU officials were injured after trying to hop out of a moving police truck. He also claimed the police only used minimum force to subdue the ZCTU officials who he said were resisting arrest.
But doctors dismissed claims ZCTU officials had tried to jump off a moving vehicle, saying: “Medical examinations of the arrested ZCTU members showed
no skin abrasions. Abrasions would necessarily result from the shearing forces associated with falling from a moving vehicle.”
A magistrate court has already ordered a probe into the allegations that union leaders were heavily assaulted and tortured by the police.
Defending the police’s strong-arm tactics to crush the ZCTU anti-government protest, Mugabe said the unionists got the treatment they deserved for breaking tough state security laws prohibiting Zimbabweans from staging public protests without permission from the police.
Torture and other forms of inhuman punishment are illegal in Zimbabwe.
Independent human rights groups however say illegal use of torture by state security forces is on the rise as the government battles to keep public discontent in check amid a deteriorating economic meltdown, hunger and poverty. – ZimOnline