TORTURE IN ZIMBABWE, PAST AND PRESENT ̸» ¬±®¬«®» ±º ͸«³¾¿ ¿²¼ Í·µ¸¿´¿ January 2003 saw the alleged torture of an MDC MP Job Sikhala and his lawyer Gabriel Shumba. This received wide international condemnation as it was seen as a direct attack both on the parliamentary opposition as well as on civil society, Shumba being a human rights defender working for the leading human rights coalition in the country, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. Both men and three others were arrested while Shumba was advising his client, the MP who had faced constant police harassment over many months since the June 2000 parliamentary elections. A combination of State forces were apparently involved in the arrest and subsequent torture, including CIO, military personnel and uniformed and plain-clothed police, who were said to have stormed the room in which they were consulting, armed with assault rifles, tear-gas grenades and dogs. Over a three-day period both Sikhala and Shumba were separately moved from place to place, deprived of all food and severely tortured. Shumba was apparently tortured by a group of about fifteen men: he was periodically kicked with booted feet and slapped about his head from the time of arrest, and tightly hooded so that breathing was extremely difficult; he was threatened with dogs and taken hooded to what was believed to be the CIO underground torture chambers at Goromonzi where he could hear the sounds of screaming in another room, and thrown against the wall before being stripped naked and hands and feet shackled together in the foetal position; he was then assaulted all over his naked body with fists, booted feet and thick planks and hung upside down and beaten on the bare soles of his feet with wooden, rubber and metal truncheons; he was given severe electric shocks to the feet, ears, tongue and genitals, and threatened with acid, crucifixion and needles thrust into the urethra; he was covered in some unknown chemical substance; having lost control of his bodily functions he was forced to drink his own urine and lick up his blood and vomit; his torturers urinated on him, took photographs of him being tortured, and threatened him with death. Sikhala was also said to have been severely tortured. The men were apparently forced to confess to false allegations, including the burning of a Zanu-PF vehicle and a plot to violently overthrow the Government. Medical examinations after their release were consistent with their allegations, and when they appeared in court the evidence of torture was so clear that all charges were dropped immediately. Shumba later fled to South Africa where he is still working on Zimbabwe human rights issues.140 None of the allegations of torture have been investigated. Shumba has taken his case to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights where it is expected to be heard late in 2005. 140 Testimony to United States Congress House Committee on International Relations 10 March 2004; Amnesty International Report 26 June 2003; Lawyers Committee for Human Rights Alert 17 January 2003; Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Political Violence Report, January 2003. 28