Court orders police to release confiscated torture photographs

This was after an urgent application was filed by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR).

ZimRights Information Officer Cynthia Manjoro confirmed the photos had been returned and that the exhibition was going to open at 6pm. At the time of broadcast the photo exhibition was set to be launched by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Two truckloads of police officers raided the premises of the Gallery Delta in Harare on Tuesday and confiscated the 65 photographs which were part of an exhibition entitled ‘Reflections’.

The organiser of the exhibition, Okay Machisa, the National Director of the ZimRights, was manhandled and briefly arrested. The civic leader was released after the intervention of the ZLHR.

The lawyers’ group said upon Machisa’s release: “The Officer Commanding Harare Central District, Chief Superintendent G. Gwangwava, advised that he had ‘not approved’ the launch and gave Mr. Machisa seven days to provide ‘letters of consent from individuals and organisations’ appearing in the photographs, failing which he threatened to prefer unspecified criminal charges against Mr. Machisa.”

But the ZLHR said in a statement: “Such actions are solely calculated to instil fear and paralysis within civil society and to prevent free assembly, association and expression around national events and processes. For too long, civil society has been excluded by political parties and state institutions and actors from participating – as is its fundamental right –

in issues around governance, national healing and reconciliation, and other matters which are in the national interest.”

ZLHR then filed the urgent High Court application demanding the release of the photographs. The rights body said the confiscation of the photographs was ‘unlawful and unjustifiable’, as were attempts to prevent the launch from proceeding.

Justice Kudya ordered the police to return the photographs within an hour of granting his Order saying ‘it was clear that the police seized the photographs without the consent of the possessors (ZimRights) and had no legal power to do so under any known law’.

The ZimRights Information Officer told SW Radio Africa that the photographs showed events at the Save Zimbabwe prayer meeting of 2007; the bloody 2008 election campaign and the victims of political violence and included pictures of the inclusive government.

Manjoro said the rights body is trying to open a platform for people to speak about what has been happening and start working on the national healing process. She said: “It’s a step back into history in which we are showing what has been happening in Zimbabwe over the last three years and we are saying that as people, we should not go back to that period. And we are trying to create a platform for truth telling because a lot of our members are saying to achieve true healing we have to go through truth telling.”

The attempts to disrupt the ZimRights exhibition come at a time when some civic groups and the MDC-T have been launching reports and are involved in various actions, chronicling some of the many stories of victims of violence.

Also this month, the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition launched a report entitled ‘Cries from Goromonzi – Inside Zimbabwe’s Torture Chambers’, a damning report outlining how ZANU PF used torture and imprisonment to manipulate elections and other political processes. Guests at this launch also included the Prime Minister.

In connection with this developing theme the MDC-T said it is supporting the fight for justice for victims of the 2008 election violence and demanding prosecution of people who committed acts of rape, murder and torture. The MDC’s Changing Times newsletter announced that the party will, from this week, start publishing names of the perpetrators of the political violence.

In their latest edition, the MDC named former War Veterans Association deputy chairman Joseph Chinotimba and four sitting ZANU PF MPs, Bright Matonga, Newton Kachepa, Herbert Paul Mazikani and Luke Mushore, as being involved in separate incidents where MDC supporters were murdered, during the 2008 violent election period.

And last Friday hundreds of MDC-T youths marched through the streets of Harare, demanding the arrest and prosecution of ZANU PF perpetrators of violence.