5 Both victims, X and Y, also stated that they had seen many more people being tortured while they were in the surgery. They also reported that while they were held there, police officers came to the surgery and secured the release of some victims, apparently those whose cases had been reported to the police, but others remained there at the mercy of the people holding them. Amnesty International is gravely concerned that, although X and Y and other victims reported their cases to the police, the police took no substantial action to curtail the use of the surgery as a site of torture until one of the abductees was beaten to death on 17 May while trying to flee from the surgery. Then the police moved in and arrested 46 war veterans and ZANU-PF supporters, some of whom have been charged in court and remanded in custody. To Amnesty International's knowledge the owner of the surgery, Dr Hunzvi, has apparently not been questioned about these incidents. Freedom of expression & human rights defenders Amnesty International is concerned about threats to the freedom of expression in this very tense situation. Journalists from both the domestic independent media and international media, who face threats in the normal course of their work have not received any protection from law enforcement agencies. The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, who have asked for police protection when their members report from the areas where threats to journalists and their work are greatest, have received no response. Amnesty International believes that the police failure to provide protection sufficient to enable effective reporting of the situation in these areas is seriously affecting the right to freedom of expression and thus undermining the ability to document human rights violations. Of further concern is the police failure to provide protection to human rights defenders, such as human rights and civic education workers, who, while deployed by civil society organizations to undertake non-partisan voter-education and the training of local election observers, have been threatened and subjected to violence by war veterans and ZANU-PF activists. Amnesty International's delegates interviewed some of these victims. Some had had their T-shirts, bearing their organization's name, ripped off them; others, in Bulawayo, Marondera and Mt Darwin, for example, had been assaulted. These people have been subjected to human rights violations at the instigation of or with the acquiescence of the government while attempting to ensure that all Zimbabweans receive information to better enable them to participate in the election process. Such actions are contrary to the obligations of all states under the Human Rights Defenders Declaration (Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms). Amnesty International also became aware of the tangible fear and apprehension among ordinary people,