Torture in Zimbabwe

Channel Four News will broadcast a film about the Zanu-PF torture camps this evening at 7pm. they say:

We have footage from inside one of the camps used by Zanu-PF militia to terrorise MDC people. It graphically shows how gangs of men, egged on by women present, beat and taunt those they have captured. Our guide boasts of how his thugs torture and mutilate their opponents. It is very strong stuff and they claim to have more than 100 such camps around Zimbabwe.
Clearly some of them want to publicise this to scare the MDC, hence the invitation to film. But the MDC seem as determined to continue the negotiations for a political settlement as they were last week when we spoke to their leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Those talks are ongoing and reports suggest they are making progress.

Despite the talks MDC members are still being held. The MDC is turning to the courts to seek their release and to get the camps closed.

As I look I find more. This is a brief summary of one pattern of torture from this blog.

The stories about the torture this young man inflicted on innocent people sends shivers up my spine. Stories like taping cardboard tape over a man’s mouth, blocking his ears and then electrocuting his testicles resulting in him bleeding wherever he’s able to bleed. Then dumping the man’s (still alive) body into a coffin and filling it with cement (whilst he remains unconscious) and then dumping it over a boat into the beautiful Lake Kariba. One can only imagine him waking up and then being engulfed in water whilst unable to do absolutely anything. I haven’t any faith in humanity when I hear stories like this

This photo of Samuel Khumalo, a Bulawayo ward councillor for the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions, who was assaulted by police during a protest, is from the same source.