Constitutional law expert and leader of the National Constitutional Assembly, Professor Lovemore Madhuku Thursday launched a scathing attack on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration for its approach to human rights in Zimbabwe.
Madhuku, a member of the Mnangagwa led Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD), said the executive led by the president is very careless in its approach to upholding human rights in Zimbabwe.
“There is still a lot that needs to be done in terms of respect for human rights. The police, they are far below the standards of what ought to be a human rights-respecting culture.
“You also get members of the executive, by executive I’m referring to the President and his ministers and so forth. They have a very careless attitude to the respect of human rights.
“They are not like what you find in other governments that simply tolerate their citizens that they are supposed to be criticized, people are supposed to be able to do peaceful protests and so on,” Prof Madhuku said.
He said the system runs down to the courts where magistrates and judges are being recruited to help with squashing human rights upholding.
“The new recruits to that failure to respect human rights would be the courts especially the magistrate courts level.
“I would say the magistrates are being recruited to join the group of people who are not reporting the rights of persons,” he further stated.
Mnangagwa’s government has been heavily criticized for its heavy-handedness on political activists, critics and opposition members.
More than 100 activists and political opponents have been arrested by the administration for simply speaking out against the regime with the worst cases being of alleged abductions of anyone opposed to the administration.
Although Mnangagwa rose to po0wer with the promise that he would turn a leaf from the late President Robert Mugabe’s old, dirty ways, there is a general belief that in just three years, he has been worse than his predecessor.
In his recent months, journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has been arrested three times for calling on the Mnangagwa admiration to end corruption.
A demonstration meant to call for an end to corruption was also thwarted using the army and police while several people were arrested and allegedly tortured for planning and wanting to take part in the mass action.
