They are already being punished by having to serve time. Depriving them of food is inhuman. It amounts to double punishment.
It is bad enough to be in jail. It is terrible to be in jail in Zimbabwe. There is overcrowding for starters. There is also appalling hygiene. In the past we have carried reports of prisoners being given soiled uniforms. Diseases such as scurvy, pellagra, TB, diarrhoea, typhoid and cholera have been rampant in the jails – not to mention HIV/AIDS.
Beatings of prisoners by guards is common place. Many are assaulted by the police before they even get to prison. We have also published photographs of cadaverous-looking prisoners on the verge of starvation. No human being, no matter how bad he may be, should be treated like that. Where is our compassion as human beings?
Prisons in Zimbabwe have always had farms where the prisoners are set to work growing their own food. What has happened to these farms? Have they been given to some zealous Zanu (PF) official or are the senior prison officials looting the produce from them as has become the norm in our country?
The Minister of Justice has some tough questions to answer. Why did the ministry stop the International Committee of the Red Cross from supplying food to prisons at a time when the government claims to be short of funds and unable to do this for itself?
Was it because some corrupt senior official was peeved at not having been given a brown envelope? We would have thought that, under the circumstances, any help from any quarter would be gratefully accepted. We need answers please.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga
Having failure in their duty to provide the bear necessities of life for the prisoners this government has the temerity to stop others who can. Mugabe has stopped the distribution food, medicine, etc. to the needy throughout Zimbabwe for two reasons. One, by allowing any NGO or donor to operate in Zimbabwe will be to acknowledge there are needy people in Zimbabwe and thus tacitly to that Mugabe’s rule has been a failure. Secondly and more significantly, allowing anyone else to help the needy would put to the sword the myth that only Mugabe and Zanu PF can alleviate in any way the suffering of Zimbabweans. It is for this reason that most NGO have been forced to operate through Zanu PF structure and thus politicise aid.
People like Minister Patrick Chinamasa must answer for their role in the totally unnecessary suffering and deaths of Zimbabweans in prison because they were denied food.
You all have to understand that under the current Zimbabwe legislature in the Staue Books,( I can supply the excact clause on request) prisoners have no rights whatsoever. They in in prison to be punished, and the prison officers see that it is their duty to punish them, in whatever wat they see fit to do so. This is why there are so many variables, every day depending on the mood swing of these officers and their peers. The mere fact that some beautiful and articulate innocent women are incarcerated, and the beatings, rapes, incest etc is an ongoing nightmare….The World at large does not care, nobody cares except for this valued magazine and its readers, and so very few others. All so very, very sad.