ZADHR
ZADHR
Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights
PO Box CY 2415, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe
email: zadhr@healthnet.zw or zadhr@mweb.co.zw
Report: Victims of Organised Violence and Torture
2nd to 9th June 2003 (Period of National Mass Action)
Over the past three years medical personnel in Zimbabwe have observed the regular and
increasingly organised use of violence, including torture, by agents of the state and ruling
party.
This report includes case summaries, with histories, examination findings and two
photographs, of incidents of violence inflicted during the week of the National Mass Action
2nd-9th June 2003. Medical reports were obtained and are available for at least 150 people who
sought medical help for injuries sustained as a result of state organised violence. Testimonies
taken during this time from many of the victims of violence in the high density suburbs of
Harare included stories of being invaded forcibly by uniformed military personnel in the early
hours of the morning, and then being severely assaulted with blunt objects for periods of up to
an hour while being accused of having organised the “mass action”. They were then made to
carry all their groceries, cash and valuables such as cell phones to the waiting vehicles and
surrender them to the invaders. On June 4th more than forty people were examined in hospital
casualty departments following assault in this fashion in two adjacent high-density suburbs.
More than half of them required hospital admission for extensive soft tissue injuries and
fractures of the bones of their hands and arms.(See Case Reports)
This pattern was repeated throughout the week in different high-density suburbs, and
continued during the weekend after the mass action had finished. On the first day of the action
forty five university students required hospital treatment after they had attempted to stage a
march from the university to the centre of the capital city Harare, and two people from a high
density suburb were admitted to hospital for gun shot wounds. The numbers reported here
represent a minimum figure, as many witnessed attacks did not result in victims seeking help
from hospitals, so that these incidents were not recorded.
A further alarming development occurred on Wednesday June 4 th when there was an
intimidating presence of armed soldiers and police (uninvited by the hospital authorities) in
and around the Avenues Clinic 1.
Deliberately inflicted violence of this nature is unacceptable to any degree but ZADHR is deeply
concerned at the extent in terms of numbers and severity of the injuries documented. The apparent
sense of impunity for their actions demonstrated by the perpetrators is very disturbing. The most
fundamental of Human Rights are abused when people are injured in this way. ZADHR also
condemns in the strongest terms the interference with or intimidation of health care personnel, and of
patients attempting to access health care for their injuries.
1
The Avenues Clinic is the largest private hospital in Harare.