/ 11 June 2007

Judges ‘shocked’ by Zim rights abuses

Beatings and other abuses inflicted on lawyers are damaging the legal system in Zimbabwe, a group of international judges said on Monday.

Following a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe last week, the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said it was ”shocked” by the extent of government abuse of the legal and judicial system.

”We were shocked. The beatings of lawyers, beatings of people and in particular the refusal by the police to carry out court orders, was shocking,” head of mission Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dube said.

The ICJ was in Zimbabwe on a five-day mission to investigate recent arrests, detention and beatings of lawyers, which it said were ”clearly an escalation in the harassment and intimidation of the legal profession”.

”The mission is disturbed that the unjustifiable harassment, detention and beatings of lawyers has only increased the tension between the Law Society and the government.

”Such treatment is interfering with the proper functioning of the administration of justice, the role of lawyers and their independence and is making it difficult for lawyers to act for clients viewed by government as dissidents,” the ICJ said in a statement.

President Robert Mugabe’s government has come under increasing criticism in recent months following a renewed crackdown against the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which rights activists say has since spread to other sectors of society.

Police last month arrested Zimbabwean human rights lawyers Alec Muchadehama and Andrew Makoni, who were on a legal team that represented MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and several other MDC officials after they were arrested and assaulted for defying an official ban on rallies in March.

Police detained the lawyers after they attempted to take part in a march in Harare. They have since been released.

International human rights bodies and Western governments have criticised Mugabe’s government for Zimbabwe’s worsening human rights record, characterised by repression and beatings of opposition members and journalists.

Earlier on Monday, pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise said more than 100 of its members were arrested in the southern town of Filabusi while gathering to launch a People’s Charter on social justice in Zimbabwe.

The ICJ urged the Zimbabwe government to be tougher on police officers, whose actions it said ”required swift action from the judiciary and the government itself”.

Mugabe’s government accuses the MDC of mounting a ”terror” campaign of pipe bombings and other attacks aimed at destabilising him, a charge the opposition denies. – Reuters