Call for Commissioner Zimondi’s Resignation and Arrest

Sunday, 29 March 2008
Zimbabwe Democracy Now calls for the immediate resignation of Zimbabwe Prisons Commissioner, Paradzai Zimonde, and his two Deputy Commissioners.
Documentary evidence shows that prison management and staff have, over the years, reported to their superiors on the appalling conditions in Zimbabwe’s jails.

Starvation, torture, illegal punishments, deprivation of medical attention and severe overcrowding are prominent in these annual reports, which have been routinely ignored by those in command. Prison conditions have reached an extreme of cruelty and deprivation. Death by enforced starvation and the withholding of medical attention is nothing less than murder in the first degree.
Incarceration in Zimbabwe, even for petty offences, has now become a death sentence. Mortality rates inside prisons have rocketed over the last 18 months. Most relatives of the accused cannot afford to post bail, even when bail hearings are held, which has become a rare occurrence.
ZDN condemns these gross abuses of justice and of human rights in the strongest possible terms. We believe that the treatment of Zimbabwe’s prisoners – either serving a sentence,  detained in remand or awaiting trial – constitutes a crime against humanity in the broadest sense.
In the name of the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, Commissioner Zimondi and his Deputy Commissioners should be arrested for these crimes – and, while awaiting arraignment by a SADC or European Court of Justice, they should be detained in their own jails. In the meantime, they should tender their resignations with immediate effect and allow emergency humanitarian assistance into the jails countrywide.
Mrs. E. Moyo
Media Liaison
ZImbabwe Democracy Now