CONTEMPT for human rights remains embedded in the Zambian police force, whose officers shoot and kill as an alternative to arrest and routinely torture ordinary citizens as part of crime investigations, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. In a new report, released on the eve of a World Bank meeting that will discuss Zambia’s human rights record, the organisation outlines how the country’s police force is influenced by political meddling to the extent where paramilitary police use teargas and batons to break up peaceful public gatherings, where journalists are arrested for reporting the news to the nation and politicians are detained on political charges. Police officers can also shoot and kill with impunity. “The Zambian authorities are failing to take police officers to court for killing and torturing people,” Amnesty International said.