Harrowing tales of police brutality

“OUR life will never be the same. They brutalised my son and I am not sure he will ever be normal again,” Jessica Svinurai spoke slowly, the words issuing from a place so profoundly deep inside her.

Source: Harrowing tales of police brutality – NewsDay Zimbabwe July 16, 2016

BY RICHARD CHIDZA

She offers chilling details of how her son was brutally attacked by the police during the nationwide protests that rocked parts of the country in the past two weeks.

Svinurai, a 54-year-old house help, sobbed as she relived her ordeal at the hands of the police’s anti-riot squad in the run-down settlement of Epworth, 20km south-east of Harare.

“All my hopes are on him, but after what he went through, I am not sure he will pull through. I had hoped he would, in due time, go through his school, find a job and be able to buy us a piece of land where I would die a dignified death,” she said, her voice cracking.

On the fateful day, Svinurai says she went to fetch her younger son, who is in Grade 4, from a local school before all hell broke loose.

“While I was walking home, I realised there was tear-smoke all over the place and we were already being affected.

My child fell into a ditch as we ran for life. Fortunately, he was not injured. I had thought the police would understand that I was a harmless woman who had just picked her son from school as he was in uniform,” she said.

“They threw teargas at us and I had to wet his school hat in a puddle so that my son would use it against the smoke.”

She said the police deliberately threw teargas into homes to lure residents onto the streets so that they could attack them.

By some stroke of luck, Svinurai and her son made their way home, but the police pursued them, armed to the teeth and wielding baton sticks.

They threw more teargas into the houses, forcing them out and started beating them up.

“They used booted feet as they beat my other son, who is 16, to a pulp, accusing him of being part of the protests that had been triggered by angry commuter omnibus drivers. I was injured as I tried to protect my son,” she said.
“I asked how a 54-year-old woman could cause trouble for the State. I asked how a 16-year-old boy, still in school, could cause this kind of trouble that had brought the might of the government onto our doorstep.”

In the ensuing chaos, Svinurai’s husband arrived home from an early morning beer drink and was also caught up in the fiasco.

“They beat him so much all over his body and again, I tried to protect him, but they would not stop. They poured cold water on him,” she said.

Svinurai later found her son at Harare Central Police Station limping. He was barely able to walk.

“Even then at the Law and Order Section, I was treated as if I am useless. They denied me access to my son. I wanted him to go back to school. They have nothing on him except the fact that he is a youth and was at home on that day. At one time, I had to walk from town back home,” she said.

As if her son had already been convicted, a sobbing Svinurai was told to buy her son a pair of canvass shoes and a green jersey “to prepare him for his new life in jail”.

“I could not believe it. I wanted my son home. I cried and asked why the President (Robert Mugabe) and his wife (First Lady Grace) could let this happen. Some told me the two are behind the police attacks because they have power. I cried,” Svinurai sobbed out her story.

Now, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission has called on citizens whose rights were violated by police to “come forward and make a formal complaint”.

Home Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo, however, scoffed at reports of the brutal crackdown and rights violations by the police force, which falls directly under his ministerial supervision.

“It’s a victim who is complaining and you, intelligent as you are, you believe the victim more than you believe the other side. You also have to be fair. You can’t go to a troublemaker and hear the victim’s story without paying attention to the other side. You need also as a journalist to do your own research and write a truthful story,” Chombo said when NewsDay Weekender sought his comment.

While analysts and the media scrounge around trying to piece together the monetary value the country could have suffered due to the protests on July 4 and the shutdown two days later, there are people whose lives were shattered, but whose stories the world may never hear.

Another victim, Chamunorwa Ngamurani of Budiriro, now has his hand in a cast and wants compensation.

“I am a member of the apostolic sect and was preparing to go to church on that day. The police just swooped on any male resident at home and started beating them up. I broke my arm and will now find problems fending for my family. I am self-employed and sell firewood. Now, I will not be able to do anything and the State must compensate me,” Ngamurani said.

Mugabe’s government has scoffed at accusations of human rights abuses and blamed “regime change agents” of lying to donor nations in return for money to sustain their operations.

Mugabe’s administration, and in particular the country’s police, has become notorious for arresting healthy suspects only for these to appear in court on clutches, battered and bloodied while in detention.

In the aftermath of the July 4 and 6 protests, dozens are now nursing their wounds across the country after being bludgeoned by riot police.

Human rights groups are battling with scores of people injured in clashes with police, including those who had ferocious police dogs set on them.