Dozens of placard-waving lawyers gathered outside the High Court in Harare and marched to Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe\u2019s office and to Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Commissioner-General<\/p>\n
Godwin Matanga\u2019s office in Harare, where they delivered copies of a petition protesting against
\nharassment and assault of ordinary citizens including lawyers by some ZRP officers while executing their
\nprofessional duties.<\/p>\n
In the petition handed over to Aaron Nhepera, the Home Affairs Permanent Secretary and to ZRP
\nspokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi by representatives of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human
\nRights and Young Lawyers Association of Zimbabwe, the lawyers protested against the disregard for
\nthe law and some constitutional provisions demonstrated by some ZRP officers during the course of the
\nyear and more importantly in the past two months.<\/p>\n
The legal practitioners cited the heavy-handed approach of some law enforcement agents in October and in November, which resulted in the death in custody of a vendor Hilton Tamangani, the assault of members of the public including women and elderly citizens, the unlawful detention of minors, the assault of journalists, arbitrary arrests of ordinary citizens, the denial of access of legal practitioners to their clients by some ZRP officers and the assault of Douglas Coltart a human rights lawyer in the course of him carrying
\nout his duties at Harare Central Police Station.<\/p>\n
The violations of people\u2019s rights by some ZRP officers, the lawyers said, will discredit ZRP in the eyes of citizens as well as in the region and internationally.<\/p>\n
The lawyers called upon ZRP officers to operate within the requirements of the Constitution and to stop the
\nuse of disproportionate force, arbitrary arrests and torture of citizens.<\/p>\n
ZRP, the lawyers said, should launch an inquiry into all assaults of members of the public at the hands of
\nsome law enforcement agents with the aim of identifying perpetrators and holding them accountable in
\norder to serve justice and prevent recurrence of violations.<\/p>\n
The legal practitioners urged the government to expedite the establishment of an Independent Complaints
\nMechanism as provided in section 210 of the Constitution, which will be mandated with receiving and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dozens of placard-waving lawyers gathered outside the High Court in Harare and marched to Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe\u2019s office and to Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga\u2019s office in Harare, where they delivered copies of a petition protesting against harassment and assault of ordinary citizens including lawyers by some ZRP officers while executing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":12973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[91,657,661],"class_list":{"0":"post-16122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-policy","9":"tag-harare","10":"tag-high-court","11":"tag-zrp"},"yoast_head":"\n