Amnesty International Report 1995 - Zimbabwe

A journalist was held briefly as a prisoner of conscience. There were reports of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners in police custody. At least five people were sentenced to death but there were no executions. Other death sentences were commuted. In March the Supreme Court ruled that the section of the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act imposing restrictions on certain demonstrations violated the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. The law prohibited any demonstration which had not been given prior police approval. The ruling followed a challenge brought by six members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) who had been charged with participating in an illegal demonstration in 1992. The law had not been repealed by the end of the year. A journalist detained and charged with receiving and publishing classified documents was briefly a prisoner of conscience. Basildon Peta, a journalist on the Daily Gazette, was briefly detained three times in March in connection with a story he had written alleging official corruption. The police demanded that he reveal his sources. After refusing to comply with this demand, both he and the editor of the Daily Gazette were charged with receiv-ing and publishing classified documents. However, they were never formally arraigned and the charges appeared to have been dropped by the end of the year. There were reports of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners in police custody. Brian Nyamutsamba died in a cell at Harare Central Police Station in January, allegedly as a result of being denied access to the inhaler necessary to treat his asthmatic condition. An inquest was opened but had not concluded by the end of the year. Four police officers were convicted and sentenced to two years' imprisonment in May for assaulting two civilians at a police post in Mutare in December 1993. Sarudzai Chimbudzi and Collins Sanyamaropa had been arrested after a row broke out in a nearby shop. They were handcuffed and assaulted with axe handles and batons by the four police officers and forced to drink large quantities of water. They sustained various injuries, including a ruptured bladder and extensive injuries to the spine and chest. The inquest into the death of 15-year-old Happy Dhlakama (see Amnesty International Report 1994), who was allegedly beaten to death in police custody in Mutare in July 1990, found that he had been assaulted in custody but was unable to determine whether the assault had actually caused his death. There was widespread public criticism of the decision taken by President Robert Mugabe in January to pardon two members of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) convicted in 1993 of the attempted murder in 1990 of opposition parliamentary candidate, Patrick Kombayi (see Amnesty International Report 1994). The two men had lost an appeal against the conviction in the Supreme Court earlier in January. At least five people were sentenced to death for murder, but there were no executions. In April it was reported that at least 56 prisoners remained on death row. In the same month the Minister of Home Affairs stated that since June 1993 over 50 prisoners who had been on death row for a prolonged period had had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Amnesty International was concerned about the use of the charge of receiving and publishing classified documents to harass a government critic. It was also concerned about reports of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners in police custody. Country Reports