indicated that members of the police and the army will vote inside their camps or barrack while their commanders are looking at the vote to be sure it is for ZANU-PF. 54 In an action reflective of the highly politicized nature of the police, on November 12, 2012, a police musical band refused to play the national anthem for Prime Minister Tsvangirai in the absence of President Mugabe at a national function to launch the Mid Term Plan implementation progress report in Harare.55 After the event, MDC minister for economic planning and investment promotion, Tapiwa Mashakada, convened a press conference where he told the media that the “refusal by the police band to sing the national anthem was ill-advised and misinformed action by one of the security arms.”56 From November 14 to 20, Zimbabwe’s senior police officers met in Nyanga at a Senior Police Officers’ Conference in which Chihuri warned that those “[c]ommanders [of police] that are ready to surrender Zimbabwe to our erstwhile colonizers and their surrogates are not fit to be police officers.”57 The conference resolved that national and provincial Joint Operations Command (JOC) meetings “continue to be a pillar of strength to the country, and as such should continue.”58 In 2008, Human Rights Watch found that the JOC was responsible for orchestrating widespread violence throughout the country that led to the killings of hundreds of perceived MDC activists and supporters and the beating, torture and forced displacement of thousands more.59 Since December 2012, the ZANU-PF-controlled police have carried out a campaign of politically motivated abuses against civil society activists and organizations, including the harassment and eight-day detention of human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa despite a High Court order for her release. The judge who issued the court order for her release was 54 Human Rights Watch interview with Police Sergeant, C.V, Harare, February 20, 2013. 55 Interview with minister Tapiwa Mashakada, who organized the function, Harare, November 13, 2012. 56 “Police band refuses to play national anthem,” Moses Chibaya, Zim Eye, November 12, 2012, http://www.zimeye.org/?p=66292 (accessed February 15, 2013). 2012 Zimbabwe Republic Police Senior Officers’ Conference, Leopard Rock, Vumba, 14 to 20 November 2012, on file with Human Rights Watch. 57 58 Ibid. Human Rights Watch, “Bullets for Each of You”: State-sponsored violence since Zimbabwe’s March 29 Elections, ISBN: 156432-324-2, June 2008, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/06/19/bullets-each-you. 59 25 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH │ MAY 2013