HRW ACCUSES STATE OF WIDESPREAD REPRESSION

Disappearances, alleged beatings and prolonged detention expose disturbing post-election crackdownHUMAN Rights Watch has accused Zambia’s security forces of widespread abuses against opposition members, lawyers, journalists and government critics, documenting alleged enforced disappearances, violent mistreatment and prolonged detention in a damning report on the August election crackdown.The organisation says police and military personnel forcibly disappeared people, beat detainees and threatened critics, while authorities issued contradictory explanations about security operations and failed to credibly account for the killing of former minister Mutotwe Kafwaya.Its findings include 14 cases of apparent enforced disappearance, 61 cases involving allegations of beatings or other violent abuse, and 71 cases of arrests on potentially politically motivated charges or prolonged detention without charge. These categories overlap and should not be treated as separate totals.“Zambia’s government should break this dangerous cycle of repression,” said Ashwanee Budoo-Scholtz, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Africa director.The organisation demanded an immediate end to the crackdown, access to lawyers and medical care, the release of people arbitrarily detained and accountability for abuses by security forces.Among its most disturbing findings are accounts of families moving between police stations searching for missing relatives, only to discover them days later at facilities where officers had previously denied holding them.The report says relatives of opposition leader Bishop Trevor Mwamba searched for him for four days before locating him at Matero Police Station.“He had spent days without food and without taking his prescription medication,” a relative told Human Rights Watch.According to the relative, police said they had no charge against Mwamba because the military had brought him to the station and asked officers to keep him in custody.The report also raises serious questions about the authorities’ handling of the August 14 raid on opposition leader Brian Mundubile’s residence, during which Kafwaya was killed.Human Rights Watch records that government agencies initially dismissed reports of shootings and abductions, while police denied both the raid and reports that Mundubile was in their custody.Inspector General of Police Graphel Musamba later acknowledged a joint security operation, saying officers encountered gunfire and resistance and returned fire.Mundubile, however, alleged in a High Court petition reviewed by Human Rights Watch that he witnessed a member of the military fatally shoot Kafwaya.The organisation called for an independent, impartial and thorough investigation to establish what happened and who was responsible.The report further documents allegations that 43 opposition election monitors were held incommunicado, with their whereabouts unknown to their lawyer for eight days.When a lawyer eventually saw them, he reported swollen bodies, serious injuries and broken bones. The detainees allegedly identified the military as responsible for their abuse.They spent 21 days in detention without charge before a Lusaka court ordered their release on September 10, according to the report.Human Rights Watch noted that the monitors could have served as witnesses in an opposition challenge to the election results.Other detainees alleged in court documents that security personnel waterboarded them, suspended them from a metal bar and beat them. Lawyers and relatives also reported that injured detainees were denied medical treatment.Patrick Mwansa’s family said he had a broken finger and swollen face when they located him four days after his detention. The report records further allegations of restricted access to lawyers, relatives and prescribed medication.Human Rights Watch expressed concern that treason and sedition charges were being used to suppress political opposition. Eighteen detainees covered by the report had been charged with treason, including two also facing sedition charges.The organisation also highlighted the suspension of judicial services and cordoning off of court premises from August 24 to 28, saying these measures prevented legal challenges to the presidential election results.Police described the closures as an intelligence-led preventive measure but, according to the report, provided no details.The government has rejected international criticism of its handling of opposition detainees.Responding to a United Nations expert’s call for their release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said opposition membership did not place anyone above the law or automatically turn a criminal suspect into a political detainee.The ministry maintained that legal protections were being respected and that courts were available to test those protections.However, Human Rights Watch said the combined effect of arrests, alleged abuse, disappearances and threats had created a climate of fear that was silencing dissent.It urged Southern African leaders and Zambia’s development partners to press President Hakainde Hichilema’s administration to restore the rule of law and protect civic and political freedoms.

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