locked in a car boot and being assaulted. They were kept at Bulawayo Central Police Station for five days. They were later transferred to Harare where they were released without being charged. EL He was seen by policemen waiting at a certain place in Chitungwiza. He was dragged and shoved into the back of a police van. On the way to the station he was assaulted. He was dragged into a holding cell, then later released after paying a $50.00 fine, presumably for loitering. The Human Rights Forum also saw a number of cases, and the civil suits involving these cases are pending13. The Human Rights Forum maintains that in the cases seen by its Human Rights Legal Unit there is an apparent trend towards the police using forms of torture that are more difficult to initially detect. The Forum also highlights the use of electrical shock and "falanga" or beatings on the soles of the feet, adding that falanga has not been reported widely before in Zimbabwe, but its frequency increased throughout the 1980s and the 1990s. 3. Current human rights violations in Zimbabwe 3.1 Definitions There are two definitions that must be considered here. The first is the definition contained in the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment (1984). Torture is defined as: '…any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any other reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions'. (UN Convention against Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), Article 1) The second definition is derived from the World Health Organisation’s definition, originally produced in 1986, and amended at the 1990 International conference on the Consequences of Organised Violence in Southern Africa. Organised violence refers to: '… the infliction of significant avoidable pain and suffering by an organised group according to a declared or implied strategy and/or system of ideas and attitudes. It comprises any violent action which is unacceptable by general human standards, and relates to the survivor's feelings. Organised violence includes, most importantly, "torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" as mentioned in Article 5 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Violence which occurs in these and similar situations as a direct consequence of political repression, although it may appear random, is of a structural nature, and involves violation of basic human rights and can only disappear when human, social and political relationships are profoundly changed'. (WHO.1986) Whilst both definitions cover the essential ingredients of torture, the latter also covers the features of mass terror and psychological torture in low intensity war and conflicts that have characterised 13 See ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM(2000), Organised Violence and Torture in Zimbabwe in 1999, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM. 8