4. Detention The focus on detention was due to the oft-recorded association between detention and gross human rights violations such as torture. Persons in detention are generally at a much greater risk of abuse unless there are extremely strong safeguards in place governing the process of detaining people. Indeed, there is a common misperception that torture can occur only in places of detention, but this is not necessarily so, and there are many reports from Zimbabwe indicating torture taking place outside detention. However, it is nonetheless well established that torture is more easily perpetrated in places of detention, and most commonly in police stations. Thus, the Human Rights Forum’s data were sorted according to whether or not the plaintiff had been detained, and this gave a total of 93 cases (32%) out of the 291 cases overall. Significant differences (see Table 27) were found for 1998, where most plaintiffs were not detained, and 2003, where there was a significant trend for more people to have been detained. In 2003, most of these cases were associated with Buhera, as mentioned above. Otherwise, there were no major differences over the years. Table 27 Cases involving detention Not detained (n = 198) 17.7%* 2.0% 1.0% 10.6% 11.1% 39.9% 13.6% 3.0% 1.0% 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Detained (n = 93) 6.5% 1.1% 8.6% 4.3% 15.1% 47.3% 11.8% 4.3% 1.1% *χ2 1998 (6.51; P = 0.025) As can be seen from Table 28, detention was, unsurprisingly, associated with the ZRP: in cases involving abuse during detention, the police, through their parent ministry, the Ministry of Home Affairs, were the likely defendants. The Ministry of Defence was more likely to be a defendant in cases where the abuse took place outside of a place of detention. The army has no powers of arrest and detention but of the 57 cases of unlawful detention, 8 of these involved the army; during the Food Riots, they set up camps at police stations, particularly in Chitungwiza, where they would beat up people. Table 28 Defendants cited in cases involving detention Ministry of Home Affairs Commissioner of Police Ministry of Defence Not detained 59.1% 56.6% 48.9%* Detained 91.4%* 91.4%* 23.7% *χ2: ZRP (35.61; P = 0.005); Defence (16.52; P = 0.005); Home Affairs (41.55; P = 0.005) As regards the alleged perpetrators, Table 29 shows that the uniformed branch of the ZRP, the CID, and the army were significantly the most common perpetrators, but the first two were more associated with detention, as might be expected. 21