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Political Prisoners in Zimbabwe
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| Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison is on the outskirts of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. |
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| The men confined here are held in overcrowded cells, measuring 9m by 4m. Typically speaking there are 25 men per cell. Each day the men are confined to their squalid cells between the hours of 3:30pm and 7:00am. Four to five times a week they are also locked up for the guards lunch break, between the hours of 11:30am and 1:00pm. There are no beds and so the men have to sleep on mats spread out over the crowded cell floor. Some inmates refuse to wash, which results in blankets becoming lice infested. There is a predominance of HIV positive, practising homosexuals within this rat and lice infested prison. The cells are shared with people in the terminal stages of AIDS, Tuberculosis, Herpes and other highly infectious diseases, as well as some prisoners who are mentally ill. Many of the infected prisoners are unable to control their bodily functions, and this results in the cell floor and blankets being contaminated with body fluids; pus, phlegm, blood, urine, faeces. This is in contravention of Article 24 of the International Bill of Human Rights, which covers the state providing a safe environment. |
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| The sanitary conditions they are forced to live under are a terrible threat to their wellbeing. Each month they receive ½ toilet roll and 1 ½ small bars of laundry soap. Every 3 months they receive 25mls of toothpaste. Detergents and disinfectants are issued in such minimal amounts that they are non-effective. A ½ cup of scouring powder (Vim) is issued each week, to clean eating utensils for 140 men. |
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| The kitchen conditions are shocking. They do not use hot water for washing and often there are no detergents to clean cooking utensils. Stainless steel containers used for meat are left greasy. Floors, toilets and dining tables are cleaned with filthy pieces of old blankets, and there are no brooms or hosepipes. Diarrhoea and other stomach disorders are rife, whilst broken toilets remain unserviceable for years. |
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| The food in prison is very meagre. Breakfast is at 8:30am, lunch 10:30am and supper 1:30pm. This leaves a 19-hour period every day without food. Breakfast consists of tea and bread. Lunch is a cup of boiled rice and a leafy, green vegetable boiled to a stage of no nutritional value. Supper is the same as lunch, with the exception that four times a week boiled minced beef or pork is substituted for the vegetable. Approximately 20 grams of mince is supplied and often it is rotten. It is not uncommon for prisoners to be charged with bestiality with the pigs that are bred for consumption in this prison. Sometimes the vegetable they are given is of a variety not fit for human consumption and occasionally it is contaminated with bugs and grass from the fields in which it is cultivated. Frequently rat faeces are cooked with their rice, and the medical milk ration is normally undrinkable due to it being sour or curdled. Since the decline in the Zimbabwean economy, even this low standard has deteriorated. The quality of food is in direct contravention of Section 20(1) of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. This states that every prisoner shall be provided by the administration at the usual hours with food of nutritional value adequate for health and strength, of wholesome quality and well prepared and served. |
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| The prison has only one pair of old, hand-operated hair-clippers. These clippers are infrequently sterilised and are used by all the prisoners, even those with lice and open body sores. On occasion, some prisoners have even used these clippers to remove pubic hair. |
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| There is no hot water for showers in Zimbabwean prisons and so the men are restricted to cold water showers only, even in winter, when the ambient temperature can fall below 0°C. They are provided with small pieces of towel twice a year which soon wear out, and they then have to resort to using pieces of blanket (which may well be infected with lethal diseases) because they are not allowed to supply their own towels. |
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| One small transistor radio is shared amongst 140 prisoners, they have no access to television or any other form of recreation. There are also no public telephones for prisoner use. |
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| It would appear that the attitude of the Zimbabwe prison authorities is that people in prison have no rights and they are in jail to suffer. The concept of rehabilitation for offenders does not exist. Life imprisonment as defined by the Zimbabwe Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, Chapter 9.07 is "A complete deprivation of personal liberty", however this is in contradiction with guarantees in Section 15(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe and Article 5 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It constitutes degrading punishment contrary to Section 15(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe and violates human dignity, as they are permanently denied access to an inviolable domain of private life. In particular, such treatment constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment in that when they are not afforded any prospect of release, this keeps them in a mental state of depression and complete hopelessness. |
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