The documentary, shown on Tuesday's night on South Africa’s state
broadcaster SABC3, documented the "living hell" for prisoners at
Beitbridge, Khami and Chikurubi Maximum prisons.
In an interview with RadioVOP on Wednesday, Chinamasa said the
documentary, which shocked most Zimbabweans due to its horrifying
pictures of gravely ill inmates, accused the SABC team of fabricating
the story. "What was shown by the SABC3 is not true," said Chinamasa.
"The SABC is lying. We do not allow cameras into our prisons. We have
made investigations and found out that the footage is not from
Zimbabwean but other countries," he said.
"The pictures shown are not from Zimbabwe prisons but elsewhere in
Africa and these are being attributed to us. We know our prisons are
facing challenges but that documentary was false. Also it is unethical
for the SABC to show such pictures of foreign prisoners and attribute
them to Zimbabwe. I want to re-state that no-one is allowed inside our
prisons with cameras," he said. But the SABC team said the film, made
by SABC’s Special Assignment programme, was shot over three months with
cameras smuggled into the prisons. The film showed how prison staff
have converted cells and storage rooms to "hospital wards" for the
dying and makeshift mortuaries, where bodies "rot on the floors with
maggots moving all around". In October last year the Zimbabwe
Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender
(ZACRO) released a report indicating that there were 55 prisons in
Zimbabwe, with ae capacity to hold 17 000 inmates. But in October 2008
it was estimated that more than 35 000 people were in jail.
Radio VOP
Post published in: News