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ZIMBABWE-CRACKDOWN Mar-16-2007 (390 words) With photos. xxxi
Church groups express concern with police violence in Zimbabwe
By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Recent police violence and the arrest and torture in jail of anti-government protesters have been the cause for serious concern, said the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe.
"The actions of the law enforcement agents were provocative, insulting and dehumanizing," the commission said in a March 13 statement. The police "exhibited highhandedness and overzealousness in dealing with the situation," it said.
The commission said the Zimbabwean Constitution "guarantees the freedom of association and assembly, and yet the law enforcement agents brutalized with impunity people who wanted to enjoy their right to association and assembly."
The commission called for the immediate release of all imprisoned activists and for a return to the rule of law.
It called for a "thorough investigation into the shootings so that those involved are brought to book."
An activist was shot dead by police, and several people were arrested March 11 while protesting in the capital Harare. Protesters were demonstrating against the government, which banned a prayer rally shortly before it was scheduled to occur.
Political rallies in the Zimbabwean capital had been banned in February after violent protests that month.
Among those arrested for inciting violence was Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's main opposition party. After a March 13 court appearance, Tsvangirai told reporters he and others were severely beaten by police.
Three hundred activists were arrested March 12 as people demonstrated against conditions in the country, where annual inflation is more than 1,700 percent and there are severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine, according to U.N. news agency IRIN.
The following day, two people were shot and wounded by police during a gathering to remember the activist killed at the March 11 protest.
The South African Council of Churches, of which the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference is a member, called for "immediate action to halt the persecution of Zimbabweans."
The Zimbabwean government "should avoid criminalizing the legitimate grievances of concerned Zimbabweans," it said in a March 13 statement from Johannesburg, South Africa.
The council said, "The inhuman actions of the security forces are rapidly closing the options open to the people of Zimbabwe in finding amicable resolutions for the many challenges confronting this troubled nation."
END
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