Zimbabwe: Police Prevent Medical Evacuation of Tortured Leaders

A statement issued earlier this week by the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said that “injuries sustained by Sekai Holland were worsened by denial of timely access to medical treatment which led to an infection of deep soft tissue in her left leg“

The continually deteriorating human rights standards of Robert Mugabe’s government is a serious cause for concern.

Tens of thousands of people were left homeless after he tore down shanty towns in a process he painfully named “Cultural Beautification”.
As well as this, supporters of the opposition are barred from voting. Now it also looks like the leader of the opposition has endured torture at the hands of the police.

Disgusting.

Two women severely assaulted by police in last weekend’s beating of opposition leaders in Harare, Zimbabwe, were prevented Saturday from traveling to South Africa for medical treatment.

Sekai Holland, 64, secretary for international affairs in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Grace Kwinjeh, her deputy, were badly injured during the two-hour torture session in which several others, including MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, suffered head wounds and multiple fractures.

The women were transported by ambulance from the Avenues Clinic to Harare International Airport, where an aircraft was ready to evacuate them to Johannesburg. However officers of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Office (CIO) reportedly stopped the ambulance on the tarmac and seized Kwinjeh’s and Holland’s passports.

They were told they would have to get a clearance certificate from the Department of Health before traveling and were initially instructed to go to Harare’s central police station before being allowed to return to the Avenues Clinic where they remain effectively under arrest, guarded by police.

Posted by Rythmist
Student of English Langauge and Linguistics with Social Anthropology

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