    Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law; Enforced disappearance of persons; The crime of apartheid; Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health. Such crimes are called “war crimes”, when committed during hostilities. Crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide are regarded as the most serious human rights violations, and should always evoke the “responsibility to protect”. 7 The question arises as tot whether the recent violence reported in Zimbabwe should be considered to be merely political violence, violence between competing political parties – as alleged by the Zimbabwe government – or is altogether more serious, and conforms to the above definition, and represents the widespread and systematic persecution of an identifiable group – the MDC mainly– by the government of Zimbabwe? Post Election violence: The evidence8 When the Human Right Forum issued its previous report on the 5 of May, 9 it provided evidence from the reports from only 64 persons seen to that time by the Forum’s officers. The current report has had access to considerably more evidence upon which to base its conclusions, and hence can give a more comprehensive picture of events since the beginning of March 2008. The report deals only with cases that were reported in April. There is a significant lag generally between the occurrence of an incident and the reporting by the victims to the Human Rights Forum or one of its members, usually in the nature of several weeks, and hence many cases from May are still being reported to the Human Rights Forum. Here it should be borne in mind that the reports from the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights indicates that health practitioners have seen close to in 2,000 cases of serious injuries due to violence since the March election. A subsequent report, dealing with all the cases from March, and including the data from May 2008, will be issued shortly. 7 The Responsibility to Protect was developed by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001, and was derived “in direct response to the world’s failure to intervene in Rwanda, and the controversial interventions in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo”. Very simply: State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its peoples lies with the state itself; and where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression, or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect. 8 This report does not deal with the deaths that have been reported, since few deaths are reported directly to the Forum, and, where deaths are alleged in the reports received by the Forum, it is not in a place to directly confirm of disconfirm them. The MDC has alleged that over 70 of its members have been killed since 29 March 2008. 9 See again Human Rights Forum (2008), Can the elections in Zimbabwe be Free and Fair? Paper produced by the Research and Advocacy Unit [RAU] for the Human Rights Forum, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM.