TORTURE IN ZIMBABWE, PAST AND PRESENT C. The Present (1 9 9 8 -2 0 0 5 ) Victims of torture regularly come before the courts in high-profile cases. Human rights NGOs (national and international) are specifically documenting and recording nationwide details of violations, and comprehensive reports are released. 127 These reports are widely publicised in the independent media, and pro-democracy journalists also play a direct role in exposing horrific cases of abuses. In the face of this overwhelming evidence, Zanu-PF has done nothing to prevent the violations, as it is both directly and indirectly responsible for them. All that it does is to deny them, despite a huge body of reliable evidence to substantiate the allegations, and to blame the opposition MDC for the violence. Following the January 1998 food riots, local NGOs called upon the Government to set up an independent inquiry into the abuses which had taken place. There was no Government response at all, and the UN Human Rights Committee recommendations too were ignored. 128 This set the pattern for the present period. Some selected torture cases which reached the public domain during the period under review are as follows: ̸» ¬±®¬«®» ±º ݸ¿ª«²¼«µ¿ ¿²¼ ݸ±¬± January 1999 saw dramatic court and public confrontations with the Government over torture, following an independent newspaper story that army officers had allegedly been arrested after a coup plot. 129 As a consequence of the report (which the State branded as lies), two local black journalists, Mark Chavunduka and Raymond Choto, were unlawfully detained by the military (who have no jurisdiction over civilians) and severely tortured. Despite urgently obtained court orders for their release, they were held for more than a week during which time they were beaten with fists and wooden planks and subjected to electric shock and water immersion torture, amongst other forms of gross ill-treatment. The episode led to unprecedented public protests, including from the judiciary who addressed an open letter to Mugabe calling upon him to restore the rule of law, and a peaceful human rights march on Parliament led by lawyers in court regalia. Mugabe’s response was to threaten the judges and to justify the treatment given to the journalists, while the marchers on Parliament were stopped by the riot squad with dogs, tear-gas and batons. An urgent meeting of human rights NGOs with the Attorney-General (Patrick Chinamasa, later made Minister of Justice, a position he still occupies) drew his assurance that he would direct the Commissioner of Police to investigate. 130 He later reneged on this assurance and accused civil society of having a political agenda. Eventually, after the journalists made an application to the Supreme Court, judges ordered the police to investigate the torture, 131 but the police have 127 See above I.2. 128 The UN Committee specifically recommended an impartial inquiry, action against officers found to have committed abuses, and the payment of compensation to victims: see A Consolidated Report on the Food Riots (supra), p.5. 129 See Legal Forum, (Harare), Vol 11, No 1, (March 1999), which covered the whole incident in depth, and recorded the grave concerns over the torture expressed nationally and internationally by human rights and lawyers groups at the time. 130 131 Legal Forum (supra), p. 15. Chavanduka & Anor v Commissioner of Police & Anor 2000 (1) ZLR 418 (S). 24