SW Radio Africa (London)
Lance Guma
5 January 2008
Former ZBC newsreader and now political prisoner Jestina Mukoko is being force fed poison at the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, according to the UK Sunday Independent newspaper.
Mukoko is the Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project which documents human rights abuses. She was abducted from her home in Norton on the 3rd December last year. Mugabe's regime accuses her of plotting to overthrow them by recruiting MDC insurgents to train in Botswana. This claim has already been dismissed as a pretext for a crackdown on human rights defenders and even South Africa's President Kgalema Motlanthe has dismissed the banditry charges.
The newspaper has reported that Mukoko is in solitary confinement at Chikurubi and prison officers are forcing her to take unnamed drugs. Human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa has already demanded a toxicology report to support the claims. Mtetwa told the paper, 'Mukoko is psychologically traumatized, it is not certain that she has told the full story because every time she speaks to a doctor or a lawyer, a state official is present.' After being reported missing for several weeks Mukoko and over 30 other activists were brought to court on the 24th December, only to be remanded in custody.
On Monday a judge ordered that Mukoko receive medical attention before the case proceeded. This was a second order after police failed to comply with a previous one stating Mukoko should be taken to hospital so allegations of torture could be investigated. In December last year a court order for Mukoko to be produced in court was ignored for several weeks by the police who claimed they did not have her in custody. State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa later admitted in court documents that he had sanctioned Mukoko's abduction, under the work of the dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation. He has since been working to protect the identity of the abductors in court, claiming it was a sensitive matter of state security.
Meanwhile the President of South Africa's African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) Rev Kenneth Meshoe told Newsreel the silence of the South African government on the abductions was 'disturbing'. Rev Meshoe who is also an MP said; 'If the SA government finds the kidnapping, torture and poisoning of Jestina Mukoko acceptable for whatever reason, then we ask why they still chose to remain silent when a two year old boy, Nigel Mpfuranhehwe, was also tortured simply because his mother opposes Zimbabwe's cruel dictator?' He said the SADC leadership, except for Botswana, had 'dismally failed the people of Zimbabwe, and have brought shame to our continent by their defense and protection of a man who should be in prison for crimes against humanity.'
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 SW Radio Africa. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
