ZIMBABWE:Being able to contact a lawyer in this ruined country can mean the difference between life and death.
WHEN POLITICAL activists in Zimbabwe are arrested and detained by President Robert Mugabe's security forces, their ability to contact one of the country's 175 human rights lawyers is sometimes the difference between life and death.
According to the Zimbabwean Human Rights Forum, since 2001 the group has investigated 3,822 cases of torture, 9,515 unlawful arrests, 2,746 assaults, 501 abductions, 21 rapes, 24 attempted murders, 32 disappearances and 117 murders that were allegedly carried out by the state.
No one is more aware of the dangers associated with being arrested in Zimbabwe than Arnold Tsunga, the founder of the Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), a non-profit organisation that focuses on promoting a culture of respect for the rule of law in the southern African country.
Unfortunately for Tsunga, in 2002 at the height of Mugabe's campaign to crush the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) ahead of that year's general election, the 42- year-old was accosted by a squad of soldiers while on the way to represent 150 MDC activists arrested in Honde Valley, Manicaland, a province in eastern Zimbabwe.
"I got a call from Roy Bennett, who was a member of parliament for the MDC, that over 150 members of the party had been abducted by people in army uniform and taken to a police post in Honde Valley," said Tsunga.
"One of the group, Evelyn Masaiti, was a client of mine and a member of parliament so I went to try and get her released and check on the others."
What happened next to the then commercial lawyer has shaped the last five years of his life.
According to Tsunga, a short distance from the police station he saw his client walking in a disorientated manner along the road. He stopped beside her and was ambushed by 20 soldiers.
"They had taken Evelyn into the bush to beat her and when they heard my vehicle they took cover. Upon seeing me they came out, dragged me and my companions out of the car and started to kick us and beat us with rifle butts," he said.
"After a while they took us to the police station, which they had taken over at gunpoint, and put us in the cells with the 150 MDC guys we had been told about. They then started taking groups of 10 into a room for torture sessions.
"We sat there listening and waiting out turn. Luckily, the station's chief of police came in and saw me there. I had worked with him before and he negotiated my release. If he had not come to the police station I think we were in real trouble."
Appalled by what had happened, Tsunga and a colleague, Irene Petras, formed the ZLHR in 2003 and since then they and their ever-expanding organisation have been running the gauntlet. Out of the country's 660 registered lawyers, Tsunga says that 175 are now affiliated to the organisation, which he believes is significant in terms of showing the government it has not managed to crush the legal profession.
Rangu Nyamurundira (28) has been a lawyer since 2003 and became involved in the ZLHR in 2005 after witnessing violations that had taken place over the previous five years.
He says he and his colleagues are harassed regularly and that it is a constant battle to get the government to adhere to the rule of law.
"There has been a lot of physical violence," he told The Irish Times.
"Even in police stations you find that when our clients have been arrested we get denied the right to see them initially. On several occasions we have been told we have no authority in the police stations.
"I remember last year on March 11th, when the MDC were arrested en masse for protesting, we were told by an inspector at Harare Central Police Station that . . . we had no right as lawyers to come and see our clients."
Intimidation comes in many forms, Nyamurundira explains, recalling a recent situation when he and a colleague were trying to serve members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Mugabe's secret police, with a court order.
"When we went to CIO HQ they refused to accept the order and upon our insistence that we were just following procedure they said we had to provide them with all our family details before they would accept it.
The issue for us is we do not need to give our details as long as we have a law society card.
"By requesting our details they were trying to intimidate us. You get used to the fear though, and while there is no particular procedure to deal with it, sharing accounts with your colleagues helps," he concludes.