Thus, the data from the Human Rights Forum provides strong prima facie evidence that gross human rights violations have been widespread during the period under consideration, and particularly during elections, but the most important findings relate to the decisions of the Zimbabwean courts in respect of torture. 4.2 Evidence from the Zimbabwe courts Since 1998, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has been litigating for civil damages on behalf of victims of gross human rights violations that seek the assistance of the Forum49. A report of the Human Rights Forum dealt with 291 cases seen since 1998, but the Forum has represented considerably more since then. Of the 291 cases, the majority was drawn from Harare Province, which is unsurprising since this is the Human Rights Forum’s major place of operation, and, additionally, only victims with easy access to the Human Rights Forum are in a position to make the continued contact with the Forum needed to pursue litigation. Of the cases concluded or still in progress, which was the majority, it is noteworthy that the Human Rights Forum was successful in nearly 90% of the cases that were concluded. This strongly refutes the views of the Zimbabwe Government that the Human Rights Forum and other human rights groups indulge in mischievous and politically-motivated reporting. TABLE 4 Status of cases in progress and concluded Source: Human Rights Forum (2006) NUMBER [N=131] % % OF OVERALL SAMPLE 11 8.4 3.8 Cases in progress: Initial notice Pleadings 50 38.17 17.18 Awaiting trial 17 12.98 5.84 Awaiting pre-trial conference 53 40.46 18.21 Cases concluded: [n=57] Dismissed 5 8.77 1.72 Judgement for plaintiff 51 89.47 17.53 Appealed 1 1.75 0.34 What was most interesting and relevant for the purposes of this present report was the association between the violations reported and various events. As can be seen from Table 5, there is not strong trend for violations to be associated with political events, although 2003 is clearly different, and here the events were mostly to do with the various civic protests that took place during that year. TABLE 5 Association of frequency of violations with political events Source: Human Rights Forum (2006) NON POLITICAL [N=159] POLITICAL [N=132] 1998 25.8%* 0 1999 1.9% 1.5% 2000 6.3% 0 2001 6.3% 11.4% 2002 12.6% 12.1% 2003 27.7% 59.9%* 2004 15.1% 10.6% 2005 2.5% 4.6% 2006 1.9% 0 *[p=0.005] 49 Page 14 This section draws strongly upon a previous report of the Human Rights Forum. See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (2006), An Analysis of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Legal Cases, 1998–2006. Published by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. June 2006, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM.