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Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Is a Forum, Association and Common Law Universitas of 20 Member Organisations Zimbabwe Human Rights, Rule of Law & Democracy 2013 The 2013 collaborative Report of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum’s members including the Zimbabwe Peace Project, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, The Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, the Research & Advocacy Unit and partners including Veritas Trust and Zimbabwe Election Support Network. Foreword This report is the product of a great deal of collaborative work involving a consolidation of major reports and statements made throughout 2013 by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (“ZLHR”), VERITAS Trust, Media Monitoring Project for Zimbabwe (“MMPZ”) Zimbabwe Peace Project (“ZPP”), and the Research and Advocacy Unit (“RAU”). The overall aim of this report is to give you both a broad policy picture and a detailed inventory of events relating to human rights, rule of law and democracy that took place in Zimbabwe during 2013. The report mainly covers those themes, which, in the Editor’s view and also given limited resources, were the most relevant during the year. These include rights relating to respect for the integrity of the person, respect for civil liberties, including freedom of speech and press, freedom of association and assembly and respect for political rights; elections and political participation. Zimbabwe’s performance on each of the human rights categories, up to 31 July will be benchmarked against the Global Political Agreement (“GPA”), which was incorporated under the old constitution under amendment 19 and thereafter under the new constitution, which substantially incorporates most of the rights, which the GPA sought to promote and protect. We hope you will find this report as being both informative and useful to your work, the work of human rights organisations but that above all it serves as a genuine and robust record of what transpired during a year of such great consequence in respect of the areas covered. However, we always want to seek ways to improve which is only made possible through your generous feedback, suggestions and continuous dialogue. On behalf of the Forum and all its members whose work constitute the basis of this report, I would like to thank our International Liaison office team for compiling this report as well as Judit Getu and Lindani Chirambadare for painstakingly proof reading the report. Abel Chikomo, Executive Director Report Summary Key findings and recommendations Although cases of politically motivated murders, abductions, disappearances, torture and intimidation had been lower this year than in previous years, the overall situation was still far from perfect. There were ongoing serious human rights abuses, including the selective application of the law, massive corruption and tight control of electronic media. The military loomed large and constantly threatened that they would not accept any transfer of power away from Mr Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF. Despite a fairly successful constitutional referendum, the elections were seriously flawed. Both the constitutional referendum and the subsequent elections were preceded by and held in an environment which witnessed an unprecedented clampdown on civil society organizations and human rights defenders including lawyers in private practice. All this implicated the rights related to respect for the integrity of the person, and civil liberties which include the rights to freedom of speech & access to information and assembly and association, which are all fundamental cornerstones of the development of democracy. When this is viewed as part of the wider reform discourse - for example the government’s lack of political will to implement agreed reforms and ZANU-PF’s control and manipulation of the political process - this effectively negated the right of citizens to change their government. At the close of the year, the number of reported cases of politically motivated violence and torture continued to be on a downward trajectory. However, violations assumed new forms, with the primary abuses taking the form of post-election reprisals including the demolition of houses, threats of eviction, partisan distribution of food aid and agricultural inputs, and hate speech. The last quarter of 2013 also witnessed other positive developments relating to the acquittal of leading human rights defenders and the resolution of other long outstanding criminal cases such as that of the Glen View 29. The reforms of the Attorney General’s office were also viewed positively but did not go far as the incumbent retained office. The Human Rights Commission made its first steps towards human rights awareness when it commemorated the international human rights day jointly with civil society organizations. Food and water insecurity and other social vulnerabilities such as poor healthcare continued. These were worsened by the government, which continued to pursue economic policies based on exclusion and in some cases overt racism. This all led to closure of businesses and flight of capital. When viewed as a whole, 2013 continued with the institutionalization of a culture of lawlessness termed ‘jambanja’ that began in 2000. This had a profound effect on the lives of ordinary citizens. Finally, whilst human-perpetrated violence declined, another major threat to human rights emerged in 2013 as the state used technology to undermine both human rights and democracy. Examples included the inaccessibility of the electronic electoral roll and the massive surveillance of political opponents which not violated their individual rights to privacy but also undermined their election strategies and plans. Overall, like the previous years, 2013 was disappointing as it was characterized by institutional failures and the undermining of rights in ways that ranged from subtle to devious and cunning. What makes it even more disappointing is that such underhand tactics are now ZANU PF’s preferred political strategy. Such strategy mainly characterized by state institutions complicity in denying people their rights has rendered most of these state institutions inaccessible and unable to deliver on public goods. In addition, such institutions lack the capacity, both in terms of core competencies and attitudes, to effectively arbitrate political and economic contests. Arthur Gwagwa, Editor Specific Findings Section 1: Rights relating to respect for the Integrity of the Person During 2013, the number of cases of politically motivated murder, violence, abduction, disappearance, torture and intimidation was lower than it has been in previous years. Despite this, the overall situation was still far from perfect. There were ongoing serious human rights abuses, including a disappointing lack of policy reforms and the continuously selective application of the law. Although the new constitution guaranteed rights for criminal defendants, criminal procedure laws were not aligned with the constitution; thus overt attacks on the legal profession, such as the arrest and detention of Beatrice Mtetwa, continued to be seen despite the separation of the offices of the attorney general and Prosecutor General, as the incumbent remained in office. Several political opponents - or those perceived to be such - were arrested and brought to court where due process safeguards were not guaranteed, with trials characterized by multiple delays calculated to harass defendants. With regard to organized violence, although the amount of overt violence was low, cases of institutional intimidation and harassment continued, with food related violations and post-election reprisals also occurring. Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties The new constitution guarantees civil liberties including freedom of speech, press and media and assembly and association. However, there were ongoing serious human rights abuses, including the tight control of electronic media and further controls on mobile telephone communications. Such mass surveillance affected the ability of opposition political parties to organize, and the lack of privacy afforded to them had a huge bearing on democratic progress. Legislative and institutional reforms were not priorities for the government, and repressive laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) continued to be used selectively by unreformed state institutions and actors to prevent constitutional freedoms from being exercised due to lack of political will and failure to censure heavy-handed action whenever it occurred. There were attacks on the media, judges and lawyers, use of repressive laws against targeted civil society organizations (CSOs) and human rights defenders (HRDs) and criminalization of free speech. There were 60 cases in which Section 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act was arbitrarily applied on individuals who were charged with allegedly “insulting or undermining the authority of the President” since 2010. The ongoing and escalating assault on NGOs involved in civic education, human rights monitoring, public outreach and service provision – all of which are lawful activities and noble endeavours - were highlighted by local NGOs. Free protests were quashed and met with disproportionate force. With regard to citizenship rights, a lack of clarity prevailed despite the signing into law of the new constitution which allows dual citizenship and restored citizenship rights to a lot of people who had been disenfranchised. Section 3. Respect for Political Rights The old constitution provided citizens with the right to change their government peacefully.
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