Govt under fire for ‘inhumane treatment’ of prisoners

• Overcrowding at prisons exposed
• Poor Covid-19 prevention methods
• Prison conditions worsened by Covid-19
• ZPCS ignoring court orders

By Kundai Marunya

President Mnangagwa’s Government is under fire from civil rights groups, activists, human rights defenders and lawyers representing incarcerated individuals for the “inhumane treatment of prisoners” and deplorable state of prisons and police holding facilities.
This comes as details of opposition politicians Job Sikhala, Jacob Mafume, Fadzayi Mahere, and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s ill-treatment while in prison have begun to come out.
During her bail hearing, Mahere alleged to have suffered inhumane treatment at the hands of the police.
She believes she was detained longer than necessary to keep her overnight in deplorable holding cells.
Some of the conditions exposed Mahere, who is also the MDC Alliance spokesperson, to possible Covid-19 infection while Harare Mayor Mafume shared a cell with two inmates who have reportedly since succumbed to the virus.
Mafume is currently seeking treatment after his health deteriorated while in remand prison pending a hearing on corruption charges.
“There were no temperature checks or sanitisers at the police entrance,” Mahere told the court.
“No social distancing is practiced in the waiting area or holding cells. No masks are available in the cells as cellmates had old masks.”
Mahere pointed to poor hygiene in police holding cells, something that exposes arrested individuals to various diseases.
“No provisions of sanitaryware in the cells. The toilet was a pit latrine surrounded by a puddle of urine. There is no separation with the beds and toilet hole as well as privacy during menstruation,” she said.
“No tissue paper and the toilets do not flush. A pungent smell exists because of lack of aeration. The cell blocks are small and seven inmates were crowded in each room. You have to walk barefooted and women take off their under garments.”
Despite having been ordered by the courts to ensure better treatment of prisoners and in the case of Hopewell Chin’ono who was self-isolating for Covid-19, to travel in a vehicle without other prisoners and to be provided with warm water, prison officers defied the order.
Prison officers allegedly denied prisoners home cooked meals brought by relatives and friends, which is a right afforded by the law to those who are remanded and not yet convicted.
Sikhala, Chin’ono and Mahere were fed with what has become a usual meal for inmates in local prisons, sadza with boiled cabbages or watery beans.
Posting on Facebook Tuesday, Mahere narrated her ordeal including her arrest, and a bail hearing that dragged longer than necessary.
“The Magistrate postponed the handing down of his ruling to Friday. It was Tuesday. I was to be detained at Chikurubi Prison in the meantime,” she said.
“Mr (David) Drury (Mahere’s lawyer) got into the truck to check if I was OK. He brought with him my bucket of supplies – assembled in haste by my siblings. It had all the good stuff – chocolate, candy, nuts, reading material and toiletries most of which I would soon learn were forbidden ‘inside’.
“When we arrived, they told us to eat. Dinner was old sadza and watery beans. I politely declined – partly because I was in no state to eat but mostly because of the rule of caution that I had dished out to many a client when I was on the lawyering end of such an ordeal.”
Mahere, a lawyer by profession, said she witnessed massive human rights abuses and complete disregard of the law, but all she could do was helplessly keep her head down.
“They took our details then stripped us of all clothing and our bras then handed us our green prison garb. I had a whole prison number – 38/21. My reading material (a YOU magazine and a Newsday newspaper) were taken away for ‘censoring’. I never got the newspaper back.
“We were placed in an isolation cell with no window. Covid positive inmates were housed in the cell next to us. We shared a ‘toilet’ outside lock up time. We were locked in our cell and a 5-litre plastic container with the top cut off was placed in the corner of the room for us to relieve ourselves that night.
“The next morning, we were moved to another section. It was a mix of remand prisoners and convicted inmates. Convicted inmates wore yellow,” wrote Mahere.
“The concrete floor was our mattress. We had to make our beds out of old, dirty, torn, smelly blankets stamped ‘Parirenyatwa Hospital’. Breakfast was watery porridge and a smidgen of peanut butter with some sugar which inmates had to eat with their fingers because spoons are forbidden.”
Despite being remanded while waiting for her bail judgment, Mahere was forced to work.
“We were ordered to go and weed the garden. No distinction was drawn between those who were ‘in with labour’, those on remand and a person in my position who was challenging the very placement on remand,” she said.
“I chose happiness and took it as an opportunity to get some much-needed exercise. When the hoe was passed to me, they said ‘Fadzie, scrape don’t dig. This is weeding’.”
It is not only activists and politicians who are ill-treated by the prison system and police even before conviction. There are several reports of inmates being beaten by the police during the course of investigations.
A minor in Mutare recently successfully sued the police and the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage after a police officer had beaten him while investigating a case of a stolen phone.
There are several cases of inmates’ abuse, some believed to be the system’s way of punishing prisoners into not repeating their purported offences.
Attempts to get a comment from Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) public relations officer Peter Chiparanganda were fruitless as he promised a prepared statement to be released by tomorrow.
Rights organisation, ZimRights, has castigated ZPCS for inhumane treatment of prisoners.
“Zimbabwean prisons do not have enough resources and this has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic,” said ZimRights.
“Inmates in our prisons continue to live under squalid and inhumane conditions with no access to medicines, food, and even face-masks, violating their rights to human dignity.”
Prison Covid-19 infection and death statistics are murky.
Prison officers have been reported to loot donations made towards inmates, be they food, blankets, sanitary wear and even Covid-19 safety provisions.
This has resulted in continued inhumane living conditions despite efforts by donors and various NGOs to offer reprieve to inmates. Female prisoners are on record claiming to be using rags for sanitaryware during their monthly periods.
“There is reportedly shortage of food in prisons. There is no PPE for our prisoners which then exposes them to contracting the deadly Coronavirus,” said Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition spokesperson Marvelous Khumalo.
“The way these prisoners are treated by prison officers leaves a lot to be desired. We are concerned by the inhumane treatment of our prisoners especially when we look at political prisoners most of them who do not have any criminal record.
“They are simply locked up because of having political beliefs that are different from the ruling elite.”
Mahere alleges that prisoners are forced to kneel before prison officers.
Access to quality health facilities also remains a challenge for prisoners. Some, among them Chin’ono have ended up accessing treatment outside the country’s borders having fallen sick in remand prison.
Conspiracy theorists, however, use the poor facilities and deplorable state of prisons to allege that Government is deliberately causing sickness among imprisoned opposition politicians and activists to gag voices of change.
“We urge the authorities to make sure that they improve on the state of our prisons to make them habitable because at the end of the day criminals are also human beings,” said Khumalo. Nhau/Indaba