Abductees found in police custody in Zimbabwe
| Publisher | Amnesty International |
| Publication Date | 24 December 2008 |
| Cite as | Amnesty International, Abductees found in police custody in Zimbabwe, 24 December 2008, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4958974aa.html [accessed 19 June 2013] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
The state-controlled Herald newspaper has reported that Ms Mukoko and another ZPP employee, Mr Broderick Takawira, along with eight political activists from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), were to be charged with "recruiting or attempting to recruit people for the purposes of undergoing military training to overthrow the Government."
The abduction, unlawful arrest and detention of the human rights workers and MDC activists is consistent with a pattern of human rights violations documented by Amnesty International since March 2007, when 32 MDC activists were arrested and charged with bombing police stations. The activists were allegedly tortured and denied access to their lawyers. The charges against the MDC activists were later dropped.
The practice of unlawful arrest and detention is one of the established tactics employed by the Zimbabwean authorities to intimidate and harass critics. The ZPP is one of the leading organisations in Zimbabwe involved in monitoring and documenting human rights violations, including state-sponsored beatings, torture and killings in the run-up to the 27 June elections.
Read More
Zimbabwe - a population on the edge of collapse (Feature, 24 December 2008)
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