January 23, 1999
His Excellency President Robert Mugabe
Office of the President
Causeway, Harare
Zimbabwe
Your Excellency:
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged over the acts of torture reportedly committed by military police and Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) agents against Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, editor and reporter respectively, for the weekly independent newspaper The Sunday Standard.
On January 12, military police officers arrested Chavunduka and transported him to the Cranborne military barracks. The arrest was in connection with an article, published in the January 10 edition of The Sunday Standard, reporting that 23 soldiers were arrested on December 17, 1998, on charges of inciting other soldiers to overthrow Your Excellency’s government. On January 14, the High Court issued an order for Chavunduka’s release, which was subsequently ignored by the military. A second court order, requiring Permanent Secretary of Defense Job Whabira to produce Chavunduka in court before 22:00 hours on January 18, was also disobeyed. After the court threatened to arrest Whabira, Chavunduka was transferred to the Central Police Station, where, on January 19, he was allowed to meet with his family and lawyers. He did not report mistreatment at that time. Choto, the reporter who wrote the article and who had previously been in hiding, turned himself in to police the same day.
On January 19, both journalists were removed from the police station and taken to an undisclosed location. There, government agents reportedly beat them, and applied electric shocks to their hands, feet, and genitals. The agents also submerged their heads in drums of water while demanding that the journalists reveal their sources. When Chavunduka and Choto were brought to court on January 21, they both had cigarette burns on their bodies. The journalists, charged with publishing falsified information “likely to cause fear and despondency” under Section 50 (2) of the Law and Order Maintenance Act of 1960, were released on US$250 bail and told to appear in court again on February 22.
As a nonpartisan organization of journalists dedicated to the defense of our colleagues worldwide, CPJ is shocked by the torture of Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto at the hands of government agents. These actions constitute grave violations of the journalists’ rights to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, as guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 9 of the African Charter of Human and People’s Rights, all to which we respectfully remind Your Excellency, Zimbabwe is a signatory.
We strongly urge Your Excellency to immediately and unconditionally drop the charges pending against Chavunduka and Choto. We further urge you to launch an immediate, impartial and thorough investigation into the charges of torture committed by military police and CIO agents in contravention of Zimbabwe’s constitution. We hope that the perpetrators of this barbaric crime will be swiftly brought to justice.
Thank you for your attention to this very important matter. We welcome your comments.
Sincerely,
Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director
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