By Laura Hirahara
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
LUSAKA, Zambia- Human Rights Watch has released a new report on the torture tactics used by police in Zambia. HRW interviewed inmates at six different prisons throughout the country and learned that police routinely physically abuse detainees and offer to release female detainees in return for sex. In particular, many reported being hung from a ceiling and beaten with metal and wooden rods and electric prods. Rona Peligal, Africa director for HRW stated “The government needs to call an immediate halt to police abuse, investigate violations, and strengthen grievance mechanisms.”
The agency in Zambia charged with handling complaints made against the police, the Police Public Complaints Authority, settled only 27 of its 245 cases. Additionally, reports from the U.S. Department of State and Human Rights Commission show that many reports were dropped last year after the officer in question intervened through coercion or payment to the complainant to end the investigation. Many cases of police abuse have gone unreported altogether due to fear or lack of knowledge about the Police Public Complaints Authority. The Authority itself is largely ineffective due to inadequate funding and resistance from police.
Many of those who have suffered police abuse in Zambia still bear scars and injuries. Detainees report they have permanent nerve damage as the result of being handcuffed too tightly for extended periods of time. Some have lost feeling in their hands or have fingers left crooked from being broken with bats and batons. Tandiwe, a 27 year old woman currently held in the Lusaka Central Prison recounted her arrest in detail, stating she was undressed, whipped and then hung from the ceiling. Police swung her while beating her and when she started to cry out they put a cloth in her mouth. Tandiwe was beaten so severely she fainted from the pain. When she was taken to a doctor a month later for her injuries, she says the officer told the doctor, ‘Just a simple torture that she was given, not much.’
As it has done in the past, Zambia’s government is not responding to any of the allegations. Neither acting police spokesman Ndandula Fiyamana nor Police Minister Mkhondo Lungu have commented on the Human Rights Watch report. Peligal stated “The government needs to call an immediate halt, train police to interrogate suspects properly, and punish violators.”
For more information, please see;
Times Live- Torture in Zambian Prisons– 7 September, 2010
Zambian Watchdog- Zambia Police Hang Suspects From Ceilings to Coerce Confessions– 7 September, 2010
AP- Rights Watchdog Accuses Zambian Police of Abuse– 7 September, 2010
AFP- Zambia’s Police Torture Inmates: Human Rights Watch– 7 September, 2010
U.S. Dept. of State- 2009 Human Rights Report: Zambia– 11 March, 2010
