JURIST - Hotline: Abduction of Zimbabwe rights activist Mukoko shows Mugabe's contempt for opposition

Ambroise Pierre [Africa Desk, Reporters Without Borders]: "As head of Paris-based Reporters Without Borders' Africa desk, I am both concerned and exasperated by the harsh conditions in which the Zimbabwe authorities are holding journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko.

First of all, I am concerned because her state of health has seriously deteriorated in the last few weeks. We know that she was tortured in prison after she was abducted from her home on December 3, 2008, and then held in secret for nearly three weeks. In addition, she has been put in solitary confinement in Chikurubi high security prison, which will undoubtedly prove extremely grueling for her. Jestina Mukoko is sick and needs medical treatment, which is being denied to her by the men who are holding her.

Exasperated as well, because it seems that the courts in Zimbabwe, answering to the orders of the country's political authorities, are doing everything to keep her in detention, even though a High Court ruling on December 24 determined that she should be taken to a hospital. The trial of Jestina Mukoko and her co-accused is a sham, the rights of the detainees are being trampled on, and hearings are constantly being adjourned. As for the charges against this director of the human rights organization, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), they are absurd and baseless. Hidden behind the charge of "a terrorist plot aiming to overthrow President Robert Mugabe" is the reality of the authorities' determination to hound opposition activists.

It is as though the regime of Robert Mugabe was trying to undermine the power-sharing agreement signed with the opposition in September 2008, as though Mugabe has decided to lay bare his cruelty in gagging any independent and critical voices. Against this background, negotiations between the ruling ZANU-PF party and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will prove to be complicated."