Policing the State: An evaluation of 1,981 political arrests in Zimbabwe – 2000-2005

Report Cover Photo: Zimbabwe Republic Police

“Policing the State” highlights the growth of police brutality in Zimbabwe since 2000, which has coincided with the rise of the democratic challenge to the State. During the 1990s, peaceful protest by the student movement and trades unions was tolerated to some degree, but after the forming of the Movement for Democratic Change and the […]

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Thu, December 14 2006 » Human rights, Impunity of the State, Justice system, Reports » No Comments

“Crime of poverty”: Murambatsvina Part II

Report Cover Photo: Informal mining settlement in Matabeleland

The July UN report on the demolitions in Zimbabwe has become the definitive report on events between May and the end of June 2005. Other reports have covered in detail urban and peri-urban aspects of OM. Political analysis, assessment of the judiciary, and quantification of those affected are variously covered by other human rights reports […]

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Wed, October 19 2005 » Human rights, Operation Murambatsvina, Reports » 1 Comment

Discarding the Filth: Operation Murambatsvina (Interim Report)

Report Cover Photo: Still taken from the Solidarity Peace Trust video, “Discarding the Filth”

On 19 May 2005, the Government of Zimbabwe began an operation labelled “Operation Murambatsvina” (OM). While Government has translated this to mean “Operation Clean-up”, or “Operation Restore Order”, the more literal translation of “Murambatsvina” is “Drive out the Filth”. This is not the first time this Government has used “cleaning” terminology to describe a process […]

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Mon, June 27 2005 » Access to resources, Human rights, Operation Murambatsvina, Reports » No Comments

Subverting Justice: The Role of the Judiciary in Denying the Will of the Zimbabwean Electorate since 2000

Report Cover Photo: Victim of violence, Presidential election campaign, Mberengwa East, January 2002

Five years ago this June, parliamentary elections were held in Zimbabwe.  Both the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU (PF)) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) fielded candidates in all of the 120 constituencies.  When the results were announced, ZANU (PF) was declared the winner of sixty-two of the constituencies, […]

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Tue, March 15 2005 » Human rights, Impunity of the State, Justice system, Reports » No Comments

No War in Zimbabwe: An account of the exodus of a nation’s people

Report Cover Photo: Razor wire on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa

Zimbabweans are now the second biggest group of foreign Africans in South Africa. Yet there is little formal information available on their situation. Very few are being officially recorded as political refugees. Some Zimbabweans claim that it is hard to access asylum seeker status. It was the intention of the authors to investigate these allegations, […]

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Mon, November 15 2004 » Diaspora, Human rights, Reports » No Comments