A Zimbabwean musician who claims to have been tortured by police in his country broke down in tears at a demonstration in Pretoria on Thursday as he recounted his ordeal.
Charles Matorera told a protest organised by Amnesty International SA against state cruelty how he was kidnapped in Harare on March 14 by police and armed men in black suits.
He claimed he was targeted for recording music denouncing the political situation in his country. ”As we were driving, they asked me why I was singing about Zimbabwean President Robert) Mugabe. They described him as a god.”
Matorera said he was driven at gunpoint to an undisclosed place and locked in a dark room, where he was repeatedly kicked and hit. His assailants wanted information about a mass stayaway planned by the opposition for a few days later.
After the beatings, he was ordered to remove his clothing.
”What they did to me then was not as painful as what they said to me.”
He said he was made fun of and called a ”white puppet”. He said his torturers were smoking dagga.
”What really scared me was what I saw. It was clear I wasn’t the first person to be held there. There was blood on the floor and the walls.”
Matorera said he was woken up several times during the night by men pouring cold water over him. In the morning, he was beaten again.
After losing consciousness, he awoke in a moving car. He feigned an epileptic fit, and ran away when the vehicle stopped. Matorera said he walked for about a day before he encountered passers-by who gave him money for transport to South Africa. He is now staying in a Johannesburg safe-house.
The musician started sobbing uncontrollably after pulling up his shirt to show his scars. A candle was lit and a moment of silence observed for victims of torture around the world.
Jabulani Mkwanazi, chairman of the South African branches of the Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change, told the meeting that 48 people died at the hands of his country’s government in 2001.
He said there were also 329 kidnappings or disappearances, 992 cases of unlawful arrest or detention, and 2 245 people who claimed to have been tortured.
He urged the South African government to publicly condemn such human rights abuses.
The protest called on the United Nations to put pressure on all countries where torture was still taking place.
A memorandum to this effect was presented to a representative of the UN’s South African office in Pretoria by about 100 protesters carrying posters reading: ”Stop torture”, and ”Down with Mugabe”.
Other speakers at the event urged South Africa to pass laws enabling it to arrest and prosecute foreign visitors suspected of committing torture.
They also called on the African Union to ensure that perpetrators of human rights abuses were brought to book. – Sapa