MORGAN Tsvangirai and several other opposition leaders were brutally assaulted last March

HARARE – Three people were killed in politically motivated violence and more than 500 tortured in Zimbabwe since the beginning of the year, amid reports that state sponsored human rights violations were escalating in the southern African nation. 

In a statement to mark the International Human Rights Day, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said unlawful arrest and detention, torture, political discrimination, and interference with basic human freedoms were the most common violations reported in a country also facing its severest economic crisis. 

The forum said it recorded high numbers of human rights violations on civic rights groups such as the Women of Zimbabwe Arise, (WOZA), the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), lawyers and students as well as activists of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. 

The Forum said: "Cumulative totals for January 2007 to October 2007 show that there have been 549 cases of torture, 3 086 of unlawful arrest and detention and 2 719 violations of the right to freedom of expression, association and movement. 

"As at 31 October 2007, the Forum had recorded three murders which are either politically motivated or exhibit abuse of state power." 

Politically motivated violence and human rights abuses – mostly blamed on state agents - have become routine in Zimbabwe since the emergence in 1999 of the MDC as a potent electoral threat to President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party’s stranglehold on power. 

Dozens of activists of the opposition party were killed and maimed during the run-up to parliamentary and presidential elections in 2000 and 2002 in which the labour-backed MDC nearly unseated Mugabe and ZANU PF. 

The Forum, which is a coalition of 17 human rights and pro-democracy groups in Zimbabwe, said rights violations were continuing despite South African mediated talks between ZANU PF and the MDC. 

The Zimbabwean political parties have held several rounds of talks and last August agreed constitutional reforms that will see parliamentary elections brought forward by two years to be held together with presidential elections in 2008. 

But analysts say South Africa should urge Mugabe to end political violence and repeal tough security and press laws that have hampered the opposition from carrying out its political work if next year’s polls are to be free and fair. 

The Forum said most of the violations reported have been linked to the police and called on the Harare administration to act to end human rights abuses by state agents. 

It said: "The Forum calls for the immediate cessation of all state sponsored acts of violence against citizens peacefully demonstrating for their constitutional or political rights (and) reiterates the need for the government of Zimbabwe to take measures to stop acts of torture, repeal repressive legislation, and generally uphold human rights." 

Both Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Information Minister and government spokesman Sikhanyiso Ndlovu were not immediately available to respond to charges of increasing human rights violations by state agents. 

However the government has in the past rejected criticism of its human rights record by the Forum, which it accuses of seeking to use false claims of human rights abuses by state agents as part of a wider Western-led plot to tarnish and vilify Mugabe’s government. 

Meanwhile, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday denounced Zimbabwe's human rights record while honoring a lawyers' group for fighting government repression in the southern African country. 

"In Zimbabwe, civil society remains under siege amid a political and economic crisis caused by the irresponsible policies of the regime," Rice said at an award ceremony. 

Rice gave the State Department's annual Freedom Defender Award to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation that has given legal help to activists who oppose President Robert Mugabe. - ZimOnline