A photo exhibition organized by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association went ahead in Harare on Wednesday evening after the High Court ordered police to return the photographs they had seized the previous day. But that same evening the police returned to the art gallery to try and confiscate the pictures again. Journalist Angus Shaw told SW Radio Africa the photographs that highlighted human rights violations during the violent 2008 presidential elections, were returned by police five minutes before Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was due to open the exhibit, but that the police returned later to attempt to re-seize the pictures.
However they found them (pictures) locked for the night and today they have been demanding from ZimRights the organizers of the exhibition that the photos be handed over to them again. This is in spite of a court action yesterday which found there was no basis in law for the police to shut down this exhibit.
Shaw said ZimRights decided on Thursday to abandon the exhibition, which was supposed to run for ten days, after the police went to their Harare offices in the morning. It was decided that, under this police harassment, the photographs be taken to an undisclosed location and that the exhibits can be re-planned or rescheduled later on.
ZimRights Director Okay Machisa had also been detained for several hours by Harare police and threatened with unspecified criminal charges, when the police first seized the photographs on Tuesday. Machisa was ordered by police to get the consent from all the people appearing in the photos.
It was understood that the pictures were released after intervention by the Prime Minister and the co-Home Affairs Minister Giles Mutsekwa. Shaw said: The Prime Minister was down in the diary to open the exhibition and ZimRights went to him and said Sir you are going to open empty walls, and he said he had contacted Giles Mutsekwa and the thing had been resolved.
The photographs show graphic detail of injuries and also show police chasing political activists with batons. One of the images shows the swollen face and bandaged head of Tsvangirai, when he was assaulted by police after they used violence to break up a Save Zimbabwe prayer march in 2007.
Others showed identifiable policemen in ZRP uniform and it is believed the police force do not want their handiwork to be seen in this manner.
Hundreds of people lost their lives while tens of thousand of others were battered and tortured during the controversial Presidential election. ZANU PF Ministers, legislators, war veterans, soldiers and youth militia were accused by the MDC and rights groups of having been behind the violence.
The Prime Minister said at the Wednesday opening ceremony that it was unfortunate that the police had seized the photographs in the first place. He said you cant cover wounds because they foster, and Zimbabwe must move toward national healing by addressing the recent violent past.
The exhibition was part of the human rights and advocacy groups campaign to open up debate on national healing and forgiveness.
Shaw said the police also claim there was nudity in some of the images and therefore the photographs were against the censorship laws. But the photos merely showed clinical nudity of peoples bruises and broken limbs. The journalist said none of the images are obscene, as the police had suggested.
Meanwhile the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) criticized the police action and said it exposes the continuous harassment of rights defenders by State agent.
CHRA said: What is saddening is the fact that the arrest (of Machisa) came at a time when the Government is talking about national healing, reconciliation and political tolerance. The continued attacks on human rights defenders are a clear indication of bad faith on the part of the security forces as they perpetuate human rights violations.
Post published in: Politics