According to a new report by Amnesty International, the past eight months have seen an intensified campaign of intimidation and arrests of Zimbabwe’s human rights defenders and civil society leaders.
The report, ‘Walk the Talk’ details how the police have conducted systematic raids on different groups’ offices, arbitrarily arrested human rights defenders and seized equipment to intimidate and disrupt the work of the organisations.
“The clampdown on the work of human rights defenders is a worrying indicator that government agencies remain actively hostile to civil society,” said Noel Kututwa, Amnesty International’s Africa Deputy Programme Director.
Kututwa told SW Radio Africa that the groups being targeted have been carrying out election related human rights work, and with just over two weeks until the election, this trend threatens the credibility of the poll.
“The history of Zimbabwe is such that each time there is an election we see a huge spike in human rights violations. There is a close link between human rights violations and elections. And the sense we get from this is that the state wants to limit the work of human rights defenders so they do not monitor all the violations taking place and so they do not to put pressure on the state to do something about it,” Kututwa said.
Since November 2012, at least five police raids of civil society offices have been conducted and dozens of human rights defenders have been unlawfully detained. Many are still caught up in legal processes and appearing in the courts on trumped-up charges that are widely considered to be politically motivated.
This includes the arrest of human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa earlier this year. She was charged with ‘obstructing the course of justice’, but it is widely believed she was deliberately targeted to silence her ahead of the elections.
“If such a high profile lawyer can be arrested it sends a message to others who aren’t so well known, that their lives are at even greater danger. And it has the effect of just silencing them,” Kututwa said.
He added: “The trend of targeting human rights defenders, arbitrarily arresting them and putting them in detention, has the effect of sending the chilling message to say that you are in danger. “
Amnesty International has called on the regional SADC bloc and the African Union to take all measures necessary to ensure the state-sponsored violence seen during the 2008 election period, is not repeated this year. This includes sending election observers to meticulously document human rights violations, in particular those committed by government agencies, and by making a clear public statement that human rights violations will not be tolerated.
“The stakes are high in this election and the run up to it cannot simply be treated as business as usual, either by stakeholders in Zimbabwe or by the international community,” said Kututwa. – SW Radio Africa News
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