Maputo, Mozambique — Lawyers sent by the Mozambican Human Rights League to investigate the prison conditions of those detained after the 9 November clashes between the police and demonstrators organised by the main opposition party Renamo have uncovered a vast range of illegal and brutal behaviour.
The full report of the lawyers, who visited the four provinces where there were large scale detentions (Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Sofala and Manica) makes grim reading.
In Nampula provincial prison, for instance, they found "overcrowded and degraded premises, with appalling conditions of hygiene."
Those who had been arrested on 9 November, had already served their sentences, which ranged from 30 to 90 days. But the lawyers thought they might as well investigate the prison anyway.
They found it contained 400 detainees rather than the 70 it had been built for, and regarded its as "inhuman to keep so many prisoners under these conditions".
The report says that minors were in the prison, thrown into the same cells as adults. The lawyers found one child prisoner whom they believed to be under 12, who told them he had been sentenced to five months imprisonment for stealing 300,000 meticais (15 US dollars).
The lawyers were not impressed by the behaviour of some of the courts. This in Sofala and Manica provinces they believed that the charge of "disobedience", under which supposed rioters were sentenced to 15 to 90 days jail, could not be sustained.
A charge of "disobedience" would only be valid if the police had directly told the demonstrators to disperse, which did not appear to be the case in these two provinces.
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Furthermore, in most cases in these two provinces the sentences were based on the confessions of the accused - this contradicted the principle that confessions without any other evidence are not sufficient to secure convictions.
From their study of some of the case files resulting from the riots, the lawyers declared "the most elementary rules of the criminal law in effect in this country were flagrantly violated".
The lawyers believed that many of the detained had been arrested simply for being Renamo members or sympathisers.
They also accused the police of showing "absolute disrespect for human dignity" - notably in the practice of beatings or torture which had led to the hospitalisation of some of the detainees.
The lawyers accused the Public Prosecutors' Office of failing to observe legality in the detentions, the charges, and even during the trials.
