Police deny detained students access to lawyers

In the meantime ZLHR is drafting an urgent court application citing the Officer in Charge of Law and Order and the Commissioner-General of the police to release the students.

The three student leaders were arrested on Tuesday 14 October when police violently suppressed a demonstration organized by the students body to protest the collapsing education standards in the country and to pressure Members of Parliament to prioritise the education crisis in the country in their deliberations, which began on 14 October 2008.

But heavily armed police descended on the defenceless human rights defenders’ march and arrested ZINASU President Clever Bere and Courage Ngwarai, the students union’s legal secretary. The police who are supposed to be law enforcement agents injured and arrested several ZINASU members.

ZLHR is enraged by the police’s unpardonable actions as they infringe on the exercise of citizens’ constitutionally guaranteed and recognized fundamental rights and freedoms, namely of expression and assembly.

The crackdown and the arrests of the ZINASU members undermines the right to peaceful association and assembly in Zimbabwe as provided for in the constitution.

ZLHR outrightly condemns the flagrant disregard of fundamental rights, and the police brutality

We are extremely concerned at the actions of the police and the unlawful obstruction by officers at the Law and Order section to legal representation.

ZLHR condemns this conduct by the police and reminds them that their role is the protection not the oppression of the people of Zimbabwe. Police should uphold the following internationally acceptable standards of treatment of untried prisoners as prescribed in the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, adopted Aug. 30, 1955 by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders:

(a) For the purposes of his defence, an untried prisoner shall be

Allowed to receive visits from his legal adviser with a view to

his defence and to prepare and hand to him confidential

instructions.

(b) Every prisoner shall be provided by the administration at the usual

hours with food of nutritional value adequate for health and

strength, of wholesome quality and well prepared and served.

(c) An untried prisoner shall be allowed to be visited and treated by his own doctor or dentist if there is reasonable ground for his

application and he is able to pay any expenses incurred.

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