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VII. Sustained Harassment and Intimidation of Human Rights Activists

The use of repressive tactics is not used solely on those who demonstrate—the authorities also use repression and intimidation to silence human rights advocates during the course of their daily work, and thus prevent them from exposing human rights abuses. Like student activists, human rights organizations have also been accused of supporting the opposition, and of receiving funds from Western donors to destabilize the country.⁶⁹ Human rights lawyer Alec Muchadehama told Human Rights Watch, “The police believe that human rights advocates want to topple a democratically elected government. Anything that is likely to link to human rights is construed as an attempt to change the government.”⁷⁰ 

The determination of human rights defenders to expose human rights abuses, and create conditions for the respect of human rights, has made them natural targets for the Zimbabwean authorities. Human rights activists interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Harare said that they are repeatedly subjected to threats and harassment by the government and other state agents.⁷¹ These threats take many forms including attacks in the state media by state officials, public statements by ministers, and threatening phone calls involving death threats by unknown persons purporting to speak on behalf of the government. Some human rights organizations report that their offices are sometimes subjected to random checks without warrant by police under the pretext of looking for incriminating material or evidence of criminal activities. Other activists report that police and intelligence officers often follow, harass and intimidate them. 

An activist told Human Rights Watch:

My colleagues and I went on a demonstration in Harare in July. A hundred and twenty-eight of us were arrested and then released after spending four days in custody. The charges were dropped.  Soon after that I received a phone call from a person who refused to be named. He told me to stop working with the NCA as it would only bring me trouble and then he hung up. I later found out that some of my other colleagues also received similar phone calls. None of us know who they were but it is obvious. This is what these intelligence people do.⁷²

Human rights lawyers who have in the past six months been increasingly called upon to defend political and human rights activists often find themselves the targets of harassment. In May 2006, ZANU PF supporters and state agents threatened and verbally abused Muchadehama and his colleague Andrew Makoni when they attempted to represent students arrested by the police in Bindura for protesting against the high cost of student fees.⁷³  He told Human Rights Watch, “It is part of the work we do.  We are sometimes verbally abused, insulted or threatened when we go to the cells. Bindura was worse because it is a ZANU PF stronghold.”⁷⁴

Organizations such as the Law Society of Zimbabwe and individual human rights lawyers such as Arnold Tsunga, secretary of the Law Society and executive director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, have also been singled out for attack by state officials. On August 6 and 20 the head of the state run Media and Information Commission, Tafataona Mahoso, accused the Law Society and Tsunga of sponsoring “regime change” in the state-run Sunday Mail newspaper.⁷⁵  Similar allegations were made in another state-run newspaper, The Herald.⁷⁶

The sustained harassment and vilification of human rights activists has a chilling effect on their right to freedom of expression and association and prevents them from doing their work.  According to one human rights activist interviewed by Human Rights Watch:

If you constantly have to appear in court on unnecessary charges it can be draining.  If you look behind you and see that a car has been following you for days, or the phone keeps ringing and someone is telling you they will kill you it is bad.  The family also suffers. My wife is always on tenterhooks because of my work. If she just sees a car she doesn’t know parked outside of our house she is scared.⁷⁷

The United Nations Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders) provides standards by which the international community assesses states' treatment of rights defenders. The declaration sets down a series of principles and standards aimed at ensuring that states fully support the efforts of individual human rights defenders and human rights organizations, and ensure that they are free to conduct their activities for the promotion, protection and effective realization of human rights without hindrance or fear of reprisals.⁷⁸

Key articles in the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders include the right to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to meet and assemble peacefully for the purpose of promoting universally recognized human rights.⁷⁹ The Declaration also confirms the right to criticize government policy and action in relation to human rights, and the right to adequate protection and an effective remedy when an individual’s rights are violated as a result of efforts to promote fundamental rights and freedoms.⁸⁰