violation seem to be more associated with the continuous repression that has come to characterize Zimbabwean civil life. It is to be strongly deprecated that the organs established to defend citizens’ rights are being used instead to violate them. The reasons behind the ill-treatment and torture were mainly involvement in political activities. In the plaintiffs’ affidavits they stated that members of the army or the police assaulted them while looking for MDC materials, or accused them of being MDC members and having voted for the MDC in previous elections, or as having participated in demonstrations organized by the MDC. A huge number of these assaults took place within the plaintiffs’ homes, where the army or police would forcibly enter by damaging fences and breaking down doors, usually under the cover of darkness. The police and army did not discriminate when carrying out these assaults, and there are instances where family members were all beaten if they suspected that one member of the family was affiliated to the MDC. The plaintiffs identified them by their uniforms as the soldiers would be wearing their camouflage and their berets as opposed to the police’s plain uniforms. There appears not to have been any attempt to hide their identity. The army should only be deployed against civilians under very unusual circumstances and, where these circumstances prevail, it is also clear that the army must show considerable restraint in dealing with civilians. If torture was a criminal offence in Zimbabwean law, many of the cases would have fallen under that heading, but this has yet to happen, despite the request by Parliament to the President that the UN Convention Against Torture be ratified. However, cases have gone through the courts that recognize the torture as part of customary international law.41 The government has resisted any attempt to criminalize torture and, instead, has granted perpetrators immunity, as exemplified by the treatment of perpetrators of political violence after the elections of June 2000.42 Civil society continues to lobby for the signing and ratification of both the UN Convention Against Torture and the Rome Statute. Overall, this analysis does not support the claims of the government that it is being vilified by politically motivated groups using false claims of human rights violations, as there is clearly abundant evidence from the courts that state agents, both the police and the army, committed the ‘false’ gross human rights violations and torture on a massive scale. The data from the legal cases being mounted within the jurisdiction of the Zimbabwean courts themselves are the strongest evidence that these claims by the Zimbabwe government are baseless. The legal cases wholly corroborate all the reports issued over the past years. 41 For example, Chavunduka & Another v. Commissioner of Police & Another 2000 (1) ZLR 418 (S). Clemency Order 1 of 2000, published as General Notice 457A of 2000. In this Notice political violence was defined as ‘any offence motivated by the object of supporting or opposing any political purpose and committed in connection with the Constitutional Referendum … or the general elections … whether committed before, during or after the said referendum or elections’. 42 28