“Beaten, wounded, bleeding and even lost life for exercising my right ...

Post-Election Violence and Human Rights Abuses by Provinces
Harare/ Chitungwiza
The province has seen an increase in cases of politically motivated human rights
violations. The province has seen a high number of cases of candidates who were
celebrating their victory being victimized. Stories abound of people like Flora
Namuchiha of Harare province and other MDC candidates who had to leave their homes
for celebrating MDC victory and participating in opposition politics. The displaying of
results outside the polling stations resulted in almost immediate unofficial curfews at
most beer halls in high density suburbs of Harare.
NGOs working on human rights issues have been victimized, chief among them the
Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), which experienced multiple arrests and
police raids for projecting the results of the harmonized elections. The police allegedly
claimed that ZESN had subversive materials and had no legal mandate to inform the
public of its findings. ZESN was labelled an organization that was pursuing a Western
agenda. The ZESN Director, Rindai Chipfunde Vava was detained in the post election
period with a police raid on her house and the office being conducted on the 25 th of April
2008. The ZESN Chairperson, Noel Kututwa together with Rindai Chipfunde Vava
presented themselves to the police after the raids on the 29 th of April 2008. Fambai
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© The Zimbabwe Peace Project, May 2008