ZAMBIA’S police service was on Friday slammed for its human rights record and the government accused of hiding police brutality in a report by a national human rights watch dog.
The Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development (Afronet) said in its newly released report that there was a pattern of political assassinations and documented grave human rights abuses by the police.
The report, which covered the period January to December 2001, was titled ”Zambia Human Rights 2001”.
At least 20 individuals had been shot by police or had died under suspicious circumstances in police custody.
It also focused on the Zambian government’s rejection of recommendations made by a commission into torture.
Judge Japhet Banda, who headed the commission, had investigated allegations of the torture of soldiers arrested after the failed coup attempt in 1997. He recommended compensation for victims and that some senior police officers retire. The government of then president Frederick Chiluba rejected both suggestions.
Afronet executive director Ngande Mwanajiti said the fact that those implicated remained in public office made it difficult to eliminate police brutality.
”We are also alarmed at the pattern of political assassinations. Last year Paul Tembo was shot dead in the early hours of the day he was due to testify in a funds misappropriation case which had already found one cabinet minister and two other people guilty,” Mwanajiti said.
Tembo was chief campaign manager for Chiluba’s failed third term bid but had defected to the opposition Forum for Democracy and Development shortly before his death. It was believed that had Tembo testified, he would have linked Chiluba to a scam.
The report also found abuses in freedom of association, freedom of expression and misconduct over the organisation of the December 27, 2001 general election.
The lack of freedom of expression and the media was a perennial problem, Mwanajiti said.
The report also called for the trimming of the presidents’ powers.
President Levy Mwanawasa is the Minister of Defence and the Commander in Chief of all the armed forces, making him the head of all the government departments that control law and order.
Mwanajiti said that they would use the report to challenge the new government to respond to issues. – Sapa-AFP