I was fully aware as the curtain came down on 2012 that civil society organisations with a focus on mobilisation, research and documentation were being targeted and my organization the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) fell into the category. Two organizations, the Counselling Services Unit and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, both institutions that are represented on the Zimbabwe Peace Project Board, were raided and staff members arrested for a variety of “crimes”.
The target then shifted focus on February 11 and landed at the door of the ZPP. At around 1530 the dreaded visit of the police from Harare Law and Order Section was announced through the intercom. Seven police officers in two vehicles demanded that the gate be opened. They also announced they had a search warrant that gave them the right to comb the premises for “….any subversive material, documents, gadgets or recording equipment and any illegal immigrants”. After hours of ransacking the offices, the police officers went away with documents, several boxes of wind up and solar powered radio receivers and a few mobile phones. They did not arrest anyone but they promised to contact the organization after they had studied the documents and all other items taken.
For more than a week there was no word from the police and during that period every time the intercom went off most staff members would miss a heart beat. For several weeks the staff were engulfed by unimaginable fear and anxiety as there was no word from the police. It was only on February 20 that the police had a press conference where they accused that ZPP of operating illegally despite the fact that the organization is registered. The next morning papers were awash with accusations that ZPP was involved in espionage. This being a serious offence some papers even tried to advance the argument that I should not have been cleared in 2009 of a charge of wanting to overthrow a constitutionally elected government.
In the days that followed I could not help but relive the experience of being abducted and tortured during 2008. It was clear that someone was keen to block ZPP from fully discharging its mandate of monitoring and documenting incidents of politically motivated human rights abuses ahead of the expected elections meant to end the coalition government.
The greatest shock however came on March 7, when I discovered that the police were looking for me from a public notice broadcasted on both radio and television. I thought there must be some mistake because the police had not been back to the same office, which they had raided a few weeks before, and no one had been to my house to justify this narrative that I was somehow on the run. On the main news on public television there was a notice with my picture and my two nieces who were visiting, oblivious of the meaning of the announcement,were jumping up and down excited that they had seen my picture on television.
The general announcement by the police although absurd did not worry me as much as the personal call that was made by the Commissioner General of the Police Augustine Chihuri who reiterated that I was on the run and the police were eager to interview me. The general announcement instilled fear but this personal call by the top man in the police got me panicking. My lawyer then advised that I had to make my way to her office very early as she was not sure what would happen if the public identified me on the street. The next morning, I handed myself to the police at Harare Central Police Station in the company of my legal team.
After hours of profiling, interviews and signing a police caution I was released into the custody of my lawyers. I was charged under the Private Voluntary Organisations Act for operating an organization illegally and also under the Broadcasting Services Act for failure or refusal to register as a dealer.
While the work of human rights defenders is the most honourable job the world over at the same time it is the most dangerous. When you leave home in the morning you are not guaranteed that you will make it home that evening. Human rights defenders in Zimbabwe in the last few years have been held in all sorts of detention in secret detention centres, police cells that are not fit for human habitation and maximum security prisons. In most cases the defenders are detained for long periods and in most cases they are acquitted or the charges are withdrawn.
Jestina Mukoko is the National Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, an organisation that monitors and documents violence and human rights abuses across the country through a network of peace observers.
Post published in: News