The Financial Gazette

Staff Reporter

MEMBERS of a prominent human rights group have served a notice to sue  co-Home Affairs Ministers over alleged inhuman and degrading conditions at the Harare Central Police Station’s holding cells where toilets are said to be overflowing with human waste as a result of lack of running water. Award-winning human rights activists Jennifer Williams, Magodonga Mahlangu, Clara Manjengwa and Sellina Madukani, all members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and 67 others have engaged the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights to sue the ministers, Kembo Mohadi and Theresa Makone over their incarceration at the police station under filthy conditions.
In their notice to sue addressed to the two ministers dated August 25, their lawyers state that the activists were arrested on April 15 following a demonstration organised by WOZA to protest against power utility ZESA’s appalling service delivery. The Competition and Tariffs Commission has since ruled that the parastatal has been short-changing its customers and abusing its monopoly.
According to the activists’ notification, the police rounded up about 71 activists an hour after the protests began, and these were taken to the Criminal Investigation Department Law and Order section.
“Our clients inform us that they were then forced to remove their shoes and all under-garments including brassieres and under-pants until they each had a single top and bottom. It was clear from the circumstances and demeanor of the police details that this was a peremptory order, which all detainees were subjected to, in terms of the practice and rules at the Harare Central holding cells,” reads part of the letter indicating an intention to sue.
“They were given no formal communication as to why it was necessary to remove their shoes and under-garments, but were then marched to the cells. When they got to the cells, their senses were assaulted by the choking smell of human excreta, and flowing urine of varying colours.
“Even the beds were covered with human excreta, so they sat and spent the night huddled in the corridors of the cells, as they could not sit inside the cells due to the faeces. However, even the corridor itself had flowing urine and they had to use their own tissues, to clean up the area where they planned to sit on.”  

The notice added:” When they wanted to use the toilet, they discovered that it was inside the cells, and they had to wade through a  pool of urine to get there.
“The toilets had no running water and were already full and overflowing with human excreta. Police denied them access to the toilets with their own tissue paper and categorically stated that they would have to use their bare hands, this was extremely humiliating, moreso because Magodonga Mahlangu, had a running stomach and had to use the toilet frequently. There was neither a hand basin nor soap in the cell so they could not wash their hands after using the toilet.”
The lawyers added that during the night, the activists requested some blankets for warmth, and were supplied with some they allege had clearly been “dipped in and were reeking of urine.”
The intention to sue notice says 16 detainees were given only three blankets, as there were more people who had been arrested for varying offences, unrelated to the demonstration.
Due to the strong stench, the women say they could not cover themselves with the blankets, and had to put the blankets on the cement floor so as to make their situation a little more comfortable. They said they spent a total of four nights in an “insalubrious environment”, and complaints to the police fell on deaf ears.
Food was said to be unpalatable, as they had to eat it in a filthy and smelling environment.
“In the premises, we hold strict instructions to apply to the Supreme Court, for a declaratur declaring the conditions at Harare Central Police Station Holding Cells, cruel, inhuman and degrading, and thus a violation of section 15 of the Constitution,” the lawyers said in their notice to sue, dispatched to Mohadi and Makone.
Both ministers have not responded to the notification to sue.

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