BY NQOBANI NDLOVU
THE Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has approached the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACPHR) imploring the continental human rights body to probe the country’s deteriorating human rights record.
In a letter to the commission dated March 2, 2022, the grouping of 22 civic groups through its director Musa Kika accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government of gross human rights violations including torture.
The Forum was cited as the first applicant and Peter Magombeyi, a medical doctor who was allegedly tortured into exile by the government in 2019, as the second.
The applicants want the continental body to make findings and recommendations that victims of such violations be compensated and that an independent regional forum is established to investigate the violations.
They said the United Nations should also be allowed to come into the country to investigate cases of violations.
In a more than 100-page dossier detailing gross human rights violations by the government, the Forum expressed concern over the lack of a mechanism to end the culture of politically motivated violations, redress and rehabilitation for the victims.
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“That this complaint satisfies the requirement of admissibility under Article 56 of the Charter, that the complaint is admissible before the Commission,” the Forum, which has observer status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, said in its ‘United for Human Rights Bulletin.
“Zimbabwe is a member state of the African Union (AU).
“That the respondent violated the rights enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights as already cited and that the prayers cited under each violation be granted.
“We request that the African Commission recommends that families of those, who died during the 2018 and 2019 protests be paid adequate compensation.”
The Forum added: “We also request the African Commission to make a finding that Articles 2,3 and 4 of the Charter have been violated and to direct that an independent regional mechanism or tribunal be set up within a specific period to investigate and adjudicate on these violations as the Respondent State seems unwilling to do so.
“We ask this because there is an unwillingness to investigate and in addition, the judiciary in Zimbabwe is compromised, something that we will support during the merits stage of this case.”
Zimbabwe is currently in the middle of an acute political, economic, and social crisis.
By-elections held recently were marred by allegations of vote rigging, including political violence that claimed the life of a Kwekwe Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) opposition supporter.
Mnangagwa deployed soldiers to quell post-electoral violence on 1 August 2018. Seven people were killed.
A probe into the killings by the Motlanthe Commission of enquiry implicated the army and recommended that they be prosecuted as well as compensation to victims.
While the government insists that it has fully implemented these recommendations, the Forum is currently representing Andy Manyeruke who was shot and injured on 1 August 2018 who has gone to court claiming that he is yet to be compensated.
