humanitarian.info

BBC and Alertnet are echoing the wires that the bail applications of ZPP’s Jestina Mukoko and Brodrek Takawira, and others have been granted.

The Police have routinely ignored previous court orders, so I hope that this is true. The lawyers seem to think so though. I await some confirmation from colleagues and if so, it’s terrific news.

The perpetrators of this event have caused deep and profound personal damage to a lot of decent people. If I were somehow involved in the abduction and torture of a fantastically eloquent, popular and relentless globally-known campaigner, who then became one of the world’s most prominent prisoners of conscience, and she were released, knowing my identity, with the world’s media baying for information, I’d consider the following:

a) Packing my bags (of money, that is),

b) Booking a ticket to  Hong Kong,

c) Trying to get that dirty amnesty agreement sorted out double-quick time.

Update 3 March 2009:

Seems to be true. From hospital, though looking unwell, Jestina is reporting as saying:

I am free now and I must concentrate on my health … The time will come for me to comment to the media. I am still being attended to by the doctors and I might be in here for some weeks to come.

Here’s something very real, via Denford Magora:

As Zimbabweans celebrate the unity between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, Jestina Mukoko, the human rights activist who is languishing in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison is so criticially ill that her lawyers and doctors fear she will not last much longer.

… Staff at the private hospital are unanimous that the health condition in which they saw Mukoko and her prisoners constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment, especially since access to medication is being denied.

The abysmal detention conditions in which Jestina is being held pile on top of the severe mistreatment she experienced during the three weeks she was disappeared by members of Zimbabwe’s secret police. In her own words, from an affadivit submitted to the Harare High Court recounting the first days of her detention:

“… I was now being accused of  recruiting youths to undergo some form of military training and links with people at Harvest House. I denied the allegations. Firstly I was assaulted underneath my feet with a rubber like object which was at least one (1) meter long and flexible while seated on the floor. Later I was informed to raise my feet onto a table, and the other people in the room started to assault me underneath my feet. This assault lasted for at least 5 to 6 minutes. They took a break and then continued again with the beatings.”

Charges have yet to be levelled officially at Jestina, so lawyers acting on her behalf have been challenging the lawfulness of her detention. They have been remarkably agile, siezing every opportunity and contradiction, however small to get the case in front of Harare’s evasive judiciary for bail, medical treatment or visitation rights.  Again denying an application for bail on 4 February, a High Court judge actually said: ““At this rate, one is left wondering whether the defence wants to discredit the justice delivery system and portray it as one in disarray”. He should also add “cowardly” and “politicised” to the list, and then I think the defence would agree with his summary.

Sadly, the legal process simply sits atop a deeper political undercurrent :  that of the preposterous state security scenario cooked up by the Mugabe’s government to broadside the political opposition. Jestina and the others are simply hostages at this point. As this strategy yields some successful outcomes for Mugabe, as it appears to have with today’s appointment of  Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister, it makes sense to think that the detained activists will be released.  At least the MDC appear to think so. This morning, I recieved a note via my MP from a UK government minister saying that “the release of Ms Mukoko and other political prisoners is something the MDC expect to happen before the power-sharing government takes office”.

Which is today.  No releases so far, so keep your eyes on the news.