Corporate report

Zimbabwe - Country of Concern: latest update, 30 September 2014

Updated 21 January 2015

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

0.1 Latest Update: 30 September 2014

The human rights situation in Zimbabwe between July and September has been stable, though remains fragile. There continues to be a steady reduction in the number of reported human rights violations, with levels of political violence low in comparison to recent years and no serious deterioration in governance. However, a number of recent incidents give cause for concern.

Zimbabwe’s High Court has passed three death sentences and upheld a further ten in recent months. However, Justice Minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa, announced in August that he would not sign any death warrants for the 97 murder convicts on death row. Many in civil society are calling for the government to take the next step and introduce an official moratorium on the death penalty, which is already not applicable to women or to those aged below 21 or over 70.

Aligning legislation with the constitution remains a critical step in reforming Zimbabwe’s legal framework. However, progress remains disappointingly slow and limited to less sensitive areas, while key issues have not been addressed. For example, the General Alignment Bill, which would align nearly 214 laws with the new constitution, is still to be passed by Parliament. The newly passed Electoral Amendment Act remains contradictory to the constitution, with no signs of further amendments to be made. This does not bode well for meaningful constitutional reforms around the electoral process in Zimbabwe, especially concerning voter registration or access to the voters’ roll.

More positively, the Zimbabwean Parliament passed the Trafficking in Persons Act, which has brought Zimbabwe in line with the Palermo Convention and Protocol. We welcome the Constitutional Court’s ruling that it is unconstitutional to refuse to issue a Zimbabwean passport to a Zimbabwean-born person who also holds another nationality. However, it is unclear whether this establishes a precedent because it has already been challenged by the Registrar General. In July, the Zimbabwean Parliament also introduced a Gender Commission Bill, which, if passed into law, will become the enabling act for the new Gender Commission established by the constitution. The Zimbabwe Gender Commission is one of the independent commissions established by Chapter 12 of the constitution. No members have been appointed to the Commission yet, but the Bill published on 25 July is intended to give the Commission enough operative capacity for appointments to be made, and for the Commission to start work.

During this quarter, there have been positive judgements by the Constitutional Court to uphold and protect citizens’ rights. In July, the court made a landmark ruling on defamation. It invalidated section 31 (a) (iii) of the Criminal Law Codification Reform Act, which had criminalised the publication of false statements that could undermine public confidence in the uniformed forces. The striking out of this law, which has been used to prosecute many journalists in the past, is a positive step forward for the freedom of the press. Separately, the Parliamentary Legal Portfolio Committee withdrew its report to the National Assembly on 10 July 2014, following the government’s repeal of the Statutory Instrument on Postal and Telecommunications Regulations. The court judged the instrument was unconstitutional, as it allowed third parties to access personal data without a court search warrant.

We remain concerned about the lack of respect for property rights and the security of land tenure in Zimbabwe. Despite some positive progress, with the introduction of a land permit system for smallholder farmers at the beginning of July, the UK remains concerned about incidents of violence against farmers. Farm invasions, including some seriously violent cases, against both black- and white-owned properties, as well as intimidations, are still occurring. In one recent high-profile case, a senior official in the Office of the President and Cabinet took over a commercial farm in Figtree, despite a High Court order barring him from doing so. This highlights the continued lack of respect for the rule of law in Zimbabwe with regards to land and property by those in positions of authority.

The UK remains seriously concerned at the situation at the Chingwizi Internally Displaced People’s camp. On 31 July, violence erupted in Chingwizi Camp, as people grew frustrated at the lack of government assistance and compensation for relocation. On 4 August, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) reported that approximately 300 people were arrested in Chingwizi, accused of torching a police vehicle and assaulting police during a protest against the government. Police, along with reinforcement from the Zimbabwe National Army, arrested the villagers after they resisted the relocation of a medical clinic from Chingwizi transit camp, in a bid to force them to move to a new site before the government compensated them. The villagers were reportedly denied food while in police custody. The police also burnt down a number of tents housing the dislocated families. The police have heavily restricted movement in and out of the camp. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have been providing assistance where possible, although this has been difficult due to restricted access.

The UK continues to be concerned by the actions of the Minister for Local Government, who defied court orders and re-started demolishing “illegal housing” in high-density suburbs in August and September. The new constitution protects citizens from arbitrary eviction or demolition of their houses without a valid court order. Of particular concern is the incident on Friday 26 September, in which the local council re-started demolitions in Chitungwiza, Epworth and Harare. The Chitungwiza Residents’ Trust reported the demolition exercise was “suspiciously carried out at around 0100 and 0200 hours, showing that this operation is illegal without any support of the laws of the country”. The local residents in Epworth reacted badly to the resumption of the demolitions. The local council called upon the Zimbabwe Republic Police to assist; they responded by sending in police in riot gear. There were skirmishes before the police fired live rounds into the air. Skirmishes and assaults were also reported in Chitungwiza and Harare.

During this period, we have also observed cases of public unrest and anti-government protests, though these have been handled peacefully by the government’s riot police. On 31 July, approximately 150 Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai youth members staged anti-government protests in Harare. They were angry at the government for failing to provide jobs and improve the economy. Further protests took place in August in Harare and Bulawayo.

Media reform continues to be slow, and illegal community radio stations are still targeted by the government. In our last quarterly update, we reported that the government were going to allocate new commercial radio licenses and open up the airwaves. However, community radio stations are still denied licences and suffering harassment. On 17 June, the Zimbabwe Republic Police raided the offices of Radio Kwelaz in Kwekwe on allegations of illegally broadcasting in contravention of the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA). The raid resulted in the confiscation of laptops and 1,223 CDs holding recordings of development information for the community.

1. Give your comments and questions about the report

Submit a question or comment on the report here

Invite others to read and comment on the report

We want to encourage discussion of this report and our human rights work, so if you have a blog or website, please add a link from your site through to the sections you are interested in.

Keep up-to-date with FCO’s human rights work

You can follow us on our human rights Twitter channel @FCOHumanRights, and subscribe to receive our human rights news via email. You can also find detailed information on our human rights work on other areas of this website. In addition, you can also listen to or subscribe to our human rights podcasts via RSS or iTunes.

For the countries of concern featured in this report, we will provide updates every quarter so you can follow human rights developments in these countries, and see what actions the UK is taking. These updates will appear on GOV.UK.