5 connection with contravening the Official Secrets Act was stripped naked and sexually abused during interrogation. The evidence of torture was not challenged by the state, and the appeal court took this torture into account in mitigation of sentence. Widespread torture occurred again in the 1980s. Most of the persons who were tortured were not dissidents but civilians. In the well-known report produced by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace[Zimbabwe] and the Legal Resources Foundation 9, the report concludes that it can be said fairly certainly that the conservative number of persons tortured was 7000 and several thousand more victims of public beatings can safely be assumed. Since that report was published there have been continuing investigations into the extent of victimisation during Gukurahundi and large numbers of further victims have been discovered. A recent study by the AMANI Trust in Gwanda District indicated that 5 out of 10 persons attending health care facilities in the District had experiences of torture leaving them psychologically disabled, whilst about 90% of the sample reported torture. 10 Political torture re-emerged in the 1990s after a period of 10 years when it appeared to be on the decline. During the Food Riots in January 1998, quite apart from the deaths by shooting of some 8 people, there were credible reports of widespread torture by both the army and the police11. Torture was reported in the community, the police stations and the remand cells of the prisons. More recently, there has been the notorious affair of the two journalists were subjected to prolonged and systematic torture by Zimbabwean Government military and intelligence agents. There is highly convincing medical evidence that the two journalists were tortured in the ways they allege, despite facile denials by the Minister of Defence and many other senior Ministers. Most recently, there have again been allegations of torture in the cases of an Air Force officer detained on suspicion of leaking military secrets, the three Americans arrested on suspicion of smuggling arms, and the particularly horrible case of a woman tortured at St Mary’s Police Station in Chitungwiza. There is no evidence to indicate the number of persons subjected to non-political torture in police stations or the prisons. Impunity, amnesty, and pardon Zimbabwe may hold a peverse world record for its commitment to dealing with gross human 9 The full title of this report is Breaking the Silence Building True Peace A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980 to 1988. It is a report produced by two human rights organisations, namely the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and the Legal Resources Foundation. 10 See AMANI Trust[1998], “Survivors of Organised Violence in Matabeleland: Facilitating an Agenda for Development” WORKSHOP REPORT: Hotel Rio, Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE, 21st and 22nd July 1998 BULAWAYO: AMANI 11 Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum [1999], A Consolidated Report on the Food Riots, 19-23 January 1998, Report compiled by the AMANI Trust on behalf of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, HARARE: AMANI; see also the earlier report, Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum [1998](a), Human Rights in Troubled Times: An Initial Report on Human Rights Abuses During and After Food Riots in January 1998, HARARE:HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM.