Human Rights violations at Chikurubi

14 Feb 09

Members of Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights have now spent three days parked outside Harare’s Chikurubi’s maximum-security prison, trying to get three seriously ill detainees to hospital for examination and treatment.

Last week when the prison authorities finally obeyed a court order and sent them to hospital, Zimbabwe Prisons Service Commander General Paradzai Zimondi sent orders they be taken back to their cells instead of being admitted.
Yesterday the three most seriously ill, Fidelis Charamba, 72 with cardiac failure, Gandi Mudzingwa in his 50s, with “dangerously high” blood pressure, and human rights worker Jestina Mukoko, were taken to a Harare private hospital, where they were examined by a private doctor and one from the prisons department.

Both doctors said the three should be taken to hospital. But before they could be admitted, Zimondi again ordered them back to prison.