By Agencies
THE Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has updated the 77th African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Session (ACHPR) on the worsening post-election human rights crisis, urging it to exert pressure on the Harare government to investigate, make findings public and prosecute people involved in post-election violence.
The ACHPR, inaugurated in 1987 in Ethiopia, looks into the protection of human rights across the African continent.
The Zimbabwean government has been at pains to sanitise the chaotic general elections, which were for the first time dramatically rejected by the Southern Africa Development Community Electoral Observer Mission (SEOM) over gross irregularities that included failure to align with regional and domestic laws for free and fair polls.
Key observer missions including the European Union (EU) and The Commonwealth and the Carter Centre also red flagged the elections citing gross irregularities in the conduct of the polls.
While the government has maintained that the elections were free and fair, the Forum has told the ACHPR that Zimbabwe has not been upholding human rights in the post-election era, with a spike in cases of torture, harassment and abduction.
By 30 September 2023, a total of 153 opposition political party supporters, election agents and their families were in urgent need of relocation or safe housing, according to The Forum.
“The Forum presents this statement against the backdrop of the recently conducted 2023 Zimbabwe Harmonised Election. Whilst the government insists on a narrative that the elections were free, fair and peaceful, this goes contrary to our own observations as we were among the groups accredited to observe the elections,” The Forum said.
“We therefore request the Honourable Commission to exert pressure on the Zimbabwean government to immediately put an end to the unprecedented levels of post-election victimisation, and to show a genuine commitment to do so by setting up an independent commission of inquiry to conduct investigations into all reported instances of post-election related human rights violations; to make the findings of the investigation’s public; and to prosecute all implicated persons accordingly.
“Act immediately to restore public faith in the judiciary and in the Zimbabwe criminal justice system by facilitating the immediate and unconditional release of Job Sikhala, Jacob Ngarivhume and all political prisoners as well as withdrawing all trumped-up and malicious charges against politically persecuted persons.”
The Forum said while the government has been insisting that the general elections were free, and fair, this has been contrary to reports by accredited observers including the Sadc, the EU and the Commonwealth, which could not qualify the elections as having been free, fair and credible.
