FOR seven successive months, state security agents remain the leading perpetrators of human rights violations in the country, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) September monthly reports has revealed.
“Disaggregated, the police contributed the highest percentage at 31.03, followed by Zanu PF at 15.61 percent, the army at 13.83 percent and the municipal police at 10.87 percent, while unspecified state agents contributed to 3.56 percent,” says the NGO in its report.
“The MDC Alliance contributed 1.58 percent and MDC-T Khupe was in the same region at 1.19 percent attributable to the conflict between the two factions.
“The affiliation of 22.33 percent of the perpetrators was unknown.”
According to the report, “men contributed to the most human rights violations at 88.98 percent compared to 8.46 percent women.”
ZPP recorded five cases of politically motivated killings, three cases of attempted murder and three cases of abductions.
In September, there were 23 cases of politically motivated assault, 11 incidents of unlawful detention, two cases of torture and 81 cases of harassment and intimidation.
ZPP continues to note with great concern that the large number of the human rights violations recorded in September and prior to that are attributable to state affiliated agents or institutions, and this presents what is an apparent regression of Zimbabwe into a crisis.
ZPP added, “In September, Zimbabwe turned the corner and joined, full time, the dark list of the world’s repressive regimes, where citizens are reduced to nothing but subjects who are not part to deciding how the country is run in sharp contrast to the tenets of democracy and good governance.”
“As has been the case for the past six months, government continued to use Covid-19 as an excuse to stifle rights and freedoms guaranteed by the supreme law, and as evidenced by the nature of human rights violations this month, the violations went a notch up, and were more than ever before, systematic and methodical.
“In the month of September, there were no more attempts to present a false face of democracy and this is evidenced by the following developments recorded in September, some of which had started earlier.”
