There were widespread reports of systematic and escalating violations of human rights in Zimbabwe under the regime of Robert Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, between 1980 and 2017.
According to human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch the government of Zimbabwe violates the rights to shelter, food, freedom of movement and residence, freedom of assembly and the protection of the law. There are assaults on the media, the political opposition, civil society activists, and human rights defenders.
Opposition gatherings are frequently the subject of brutal attacks by the police force, such as the crackdown on an 11 March 2007 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rally. In the events, party leader Morgan Tsvangirai and 49 other opposition activists were arrested and severely beaten by the police. Edward Chikombo, a journalist who sent images of the beatings to foreign media, was abducted and murdered a few days later. After his release, Morgan Tsvangirai told the BBC that he suffered head injuries and blows to the arms, knees and back, and that he lost a significant amount of blood. The police action was strongly condemned by the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, the European Union and the United States. While nothing that the activists had suffered injuries, but not mentioning the cause of them, the Zimbabwean government-controlled daily newspaper The Herald claimed the police had intervened after demonstrators "ran amok looting shops, destroying property, mugging civilians, and assaulting police officers and innocent members of the public". The newspaper also argued that the opposition had been "wilfully violating the ban on political rallies".
Police repression
There is a widespread consensus among human rights organisations that systematic violations of the right of personal freedom and integrity are frequent in Zimbabwe, especially towards suspected members of the political opposition. The violations are perpetrated by government supporters as well as law enforcement agencies, and include assaults, torture, death threats, kidnappings and unlawful arrests and detentions.
In 1999, three Americans – John Dixon, Gary Blanchard and Joseph Pettijohn – claimed to have been tortured after their arrest. The trial judge accepted their evidence of torture and gave them lenient sentences after their conviction for weapons offences.
In the same year, Robert Mugabe condemned judges at Zimbabwe's Supreme Court who asked him to comment on the illegal arrest and torture, by state security services, of two journalists, Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto.
The law enforcement agencies are a major source of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. According to Human Rights Watch there have been a growing number of cases in which police have assaulted and tortured opposition supporters and civil society activists. One notable case was the arrest and subsequent beatings of a group of trade union activists, including the president and secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, at Matapi police station, following peaceful protests on 13 September 2006. The unionists were initially denied medical and juridical assistance.
Another similar case was the arrest of student activist leader Promise Mkwanazi on 29 May 2006. Mkwanazi was detained at a police station in Bindura for five days without charge. During that time he was repeatedly stripped, shackled and beaten with batons by policemen, who accused him of trying to overthrow the government. He had been the subject of constant police surveillance since 2000 due to his involvement in MDC party rallies and recruitment with assistance from fellow members and former student activists Tafadzwa Takawira and Tendai Ndira, who had also been victims of police brutality, torture and unlawful detention in cells which were of inhuman conditions and poor sanitary standards with non-flushing toilets and little air ventilation within the cells.
From 2001 to September 2006, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum recorded over 1200 cases of human rights violations by the law enforcement agencies, including 363 cases of torture, 516 cases of assault, 58 cases of death threats, 399 cases of unlawful arrest and 451 cases of unlawful detention. Many of these incidents include multiple victims. The organisation finds that the law enforcement agencies are encouraged to perpetrate abuses by statements made by high-ranking members of the ruling party ZANU-PF.