Table 34 Association of ZRP with serious assaults Others 25.3% 70.5%* 1.1% 7.4% 20.0% 2.1% 7.4% 1.1% Assault Assault GBH Murder Property violations Torture Unlawful arrest Unlawful detention Shooting ZRP 25.1% 63.1% 1.0% 4.6% 27.2%* 16.4%* 25.6%* 9.7%* *χ2: Assault GBH (13.69); Torture (14.48); Unlawful arrest (24.3); Unlawful detention (24.01); Shooting (7.51) There were no differences in the damages (see Table 35). Table 35 Association of damages claims with ZRP Amount claimed (Z$) Amount awarded (Z$) Amount claimed (US$) Amount awarded (US$) Others 7,332,554 152,218 12,025 109 ZRP 2,830,242 175,739 3,787 143 Interestingly, of the 291 cases that were brought before the courts, in 114 the plaintiffs were complaining of assaults and torture by the police at police stations, regardless of whether it was a political or criminal case. This is an enormous number considering that police stations are supposed to be places of safety. There have been cases where people have gone to police stations to report cases and have ended up either assaulted or arrested. There were 35 cases of falanga, and the majority of them took place at Harare Central Police station. The pattern seems to be that people are arrested, taken to different police stations, and then are often moved to Harare Central where they are usually detained and falanga frequently takes place. The most common weapons used for falanga are baton sticks and wooden planks. The worst police stations according to the data are Harare Central, Braeside, Southerton and Hatfield. Other police stations of note are Highlands, Rhodesville, Avondale and Mabvuku. In Chitungwiza, the worst police stations are identified as St Mary’s and Makoni. In Manicaland, Buhera and Murambinda Police Stations were the most prominent, and in Mashonaland West, Chinhoyi Police Station and Chemagamba Police Post were the worst, whilst in Masvingo Province, it was Zaka Police Station. Of course, there may be many other police stations involved, and those noted above are merely those that have come to the attention of the Human Rights Forum through the legal suits. Table 36 details each police station and the number of cases in which it is mentioned; as was stated above, it is important to note that more than one police station can be mentioned in one case as accused are moved from one police station to another. It is also worth noting the number of individual names of police, army and others identified in these legal suits (see Appendix 1). The Human Rights Forum has had occasion in the past to comment on the involvement of the ZRP in gross human rights violations,39 and it is evident that significant numbers of policemen (54 in all), including a distressingly high number of members of the 39 See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Torture by State Agents in Zimbabwe: January 2001 to August 2002. 25