promoting human rights and the rule of law in southern africa
1st March 2010
New York, March 1, 2010—A Zimbabwean freelance journalist was arrested today for the third time this year—this time for taking footage of prisoners outside a courthouse in the capital, Harare, according to local journalists.
Read further »
12th November 2009
The Forum for the participation of NGO’s at the 46th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) on 9 November 2009 agreed to adopt a resolution on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe as a whole.
Read further »
9th November 2009
Tens of thousands of children have been sexually abused in Zimbabwe in a growing epidemic that has shocked human rights activists.
A single clinic in the capital, Harare, says it has treated nearly 30,000 girls and boys who were abused in the past four years ‑ an average of 20 per day. Experts believe that the country's economic collapse under Robert Mugabe has led to widespread family breakdown and left many children vulnerable.
Read further »
7th November 2009
JOHANNESBURG - A leading Regional think-tank has warned SADC leaders of the impact of their failure to find lasting solution to the Zimbabwean crisis at the Maputo Summit on Thursday.
In a statement released to the media Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), warned the Southern African Development Community (SADC) that if it does not act urgently to halt increasing militarisation in Zimbabwe and secure effective implementation of the GPA, there is a serious risk that Zimbabwe will slide back to the crisis levels of 2008, devolve into further widespread violence and that real gains – in health and education – will be lost.
Read further »
5th November 2009
Maputo - Zimbabwe's rival leaders remain committed to the nation's power-sharing deal, despite a deadlock that has paralysed the unity government, a regional official said on Wednesday ahead of a summit on the crisis.
Read further »
4th November 2009
ZIMBABWE: A WAY FORWARD
Read further » |
Download
4th November 2009
NEWS RELEASE FROM THE OPEN SOCIETY INITIATIVE FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA (OSISA)
Johannesburg, 04 November 2009: If the Southern African Development Community (SADC) does not act urgently to halt increasing militarisation in Zimbabwe and secure effective implementation of the Global Political Agreement, there is a serious risk that Zimbabwe will slide back to the crisis levels of 2008, devolve into further widespread violence and that real gains – in health and education – will be lost.
Read further » |
Download
2nd November 2009
Mordecai Mahlangu, a prominent human rights and media lawyer was on 02 November 2009 arrested for allegedly writing a letter to Attorney General (AG) Johannes Tomana.
Read further »
31st October 2009
HARARE -- At least 12 soldiers died last week after they were brutally tortured by military intelligence agents following the disappearance of an assortment of guns and bombs from Pomona barracks, we can reveal. (Pictured: UN torture expert Manfred Nowak – Was deported from Zimbabwe last week)
Read further »
29th October 2009
Harare - United Nations human rights expert Manfred Nowak was deported from Zimbabwe on Thursday after being detained by security officials on arrival overnight, a U.N. official said.
"We are boarding the plane to Johannesburg now," the official said by cellphone from Harare airport.
Read further »
29th October 2009
Johannesburg - The United Nations torture expert Manfred Nowak said on Thursday he would recommend that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) take action against Zimbabwe after his expulsion from the country.
Read further »
28th October 2009
Zimbabwe has withdrawn an invitation to a United Nations (UN) expert on torture citing a busy schedule because of a visit to the country by the regional bloc’s ministerial to try and unlock a political deadlock between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Read further »
28th October 2009
With a SADC team heading to Zimbabwe Wednesday a leading human rights lawyer said there is a disturbing escalation of conflict and violence in the country.
Recent attacks on MDC activists, both in urban and rural areas, have escalated the tense relations between Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe. The human rights defender, who asked not to be named, warned that the country was on the brink of a major catastrophe, which if not addressed ‘immediately and decisively’ would plunge Zimbabwe into a crisis worse that last year’s.
Read further »
26th October 2009
Harare - The heads of the umbrella organisation for all of Zimbabwe's non-governmental organisations were arrested on Sunday amid worsening signs of the disintegration of the country's fragile coalition government.
Read further »
20th October 2009
HARARE – A pioneering black Zimbabwean commercial farmer has been evicted from his farm in defiance of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal ruling barring his eviction.
Read further »
19th October 2009
Pinsi Tauro, Gladys Guvheya and Tariro Benhura were heavily assaulted with an iron bar by a ZANU PF self confessed war veteran Jacob Chiripanyanga yesterday around 0700 hours in the morning at Foothills farm in Bindura.
Read further »
7th October 2009
Ten Zimbabwean students at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa have been kicked out of a Presidential Scholarship Fund, for allegedly supporting the MDC. (Pictured: Fort Hare University) The programme is meant to assist under-privileged students, using taxpayer's money, but has been dogged over the years by accusations of being politicized in favour of beneficiaries aligned to ZANU PF
Read further »
1st October 2009
HARARE – Zimbabwe has pulled out of a regional court, which ruled that 78 white farmers can keep their farms because Harare’s land reforms programme discriminated against them.
Read further »
28th September 2009
Harare - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the government could not prosecute a leading human rights activist facing terrorism charges because her abduction and torture in custody infringed her rights.
Read further »
22nd September 2009
In the last few weeks Zimbabwe’s Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs, Patrick Chinamasa, has sought to attack the SADC Tribunal, primarily alleging that it has been established in violation of international law.
Read further » |
Download
10th September 2009
Cape Town - Sanctions against Zimbabwe should not be lifted until rights violations end in that country, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, ahead of a meeting between South Africa and the European Union.
Read further »
3rd September 2009
HARARE – A potential war of words looms between the Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, His Excellency President Robert Mugabe and the United States government following a visit to Zimbabwe by a five-member delegation from the US House of Representatives.
Read further »
28th August 2009
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has ruled that the Zimbabwean government should repeal sections 79 and 80 of the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) which contravenes Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
Read further »
27th August 2009
In May 2008, then President Thabo Mbeki commissioned six retired South African Generals to report on allegations of violence committed in the aftermath of the first round of Zimbabwe’s elections of March 2008. That report has never been made public and the Presidency now maintains that a written report was never compiled. The report was commissioned under the auspices of Mbeki’s SADC-appointed role as facilitator of political dialogue in Zimbabwe. The existence, or non-existence of the report, has implications for the obligations owed by former President Mbeki and the current South African government to SADC, and for the obligations of SADC itself.
For a more comprehensive account of these obligations, see the attached briefing document.
Read further » |
Download
1st July 2009
In April 2008, a Chinese ship carrying arms destined for Zimbabwe’s Defence Force
attempted to offload those weapons in Durban’s harbour, so that they might be transported across South African territory to land-locked Zimbabwe. South African civil society, alerted to the existence of the arms and anxious that they might be used to suppress democratic forces in the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s controversial elections, undertook a number of actions to stop delivery. Among them, they obtained a court order preventing the offloading and transfer of the arms cargo and the ship then fled Durban in an attempt to find another
southern African port.
Read further » |
Download
19th May 2009
Despite the almost total collapse of the rule of law in Zimbabwe, there are few lawyers anywhere in the world more implacable in their quest to see justice done.
Read further »
2nd March 2009
MISA-Zimbabwe cautiously welcomes the formation of the inclusive government in terms of the September 15 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) and extends its congratulations to Honorable Morgan Tsvangirai....
Read further »
24th February 2009
Zimbabwe’s peace is being held to ransom, raising the question of whether peace is possible without justice, writes NICOLE FRITZ
Read further »
12th February 2009
HARARE - The media sub-committee of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) wants to meet with the new information minister next week, to start work on the deregulation of draconian media laws.
Read further »
10th February 2009
HARARE (MISA) - The magistrates’ court on February 9, 2009, heard how prison officers had whisked detained freelance photojournalist Anderson Shadreck Manyere from the Avenues Clinic in Harare on February 6, 2009, before he had been accorded full medical treatment.
Read further »