Poli-Tricks and Just-Ice

Zimbabwe Vote Rigging
originally published: 4th July 2008
all credits: Sky News

Secret footage showing how Robert Mugabe's supporters rigged Zimbawe's elections has been uncovered.

A prison guard working in Harare central jail used a hidden camera to capture images of people being forced to fill in their ballot papers in front of Zanu-PF officials. Having passed the video to The Guardian newspaper, Shepherd Yuda, 36, then fled the country with his wife and children.

He hoped the footage would help draw further attention to the violence and corruption in Zimbabwe - to which he lost his uncle, who was an opposition supporter, two months ago. Using a hidden camera, Yuda filmed the days running up to the run-off election in which Mugabe claimed victory with 90% of the vote.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) leader, had earlier said his party would not be participating in the run-off because of intimidation. "I had never seen that kind of violence before," said Yuda, of the run-up to the election. "How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, murder its people, torture its people?" Yuda filmed prison officers having to fill out of their forms in front of Zanu-PF supporters. He also shot rallies where voters were told they should pretend to be illiterate so that an official could fill in their ballot for them on behalf of Mugabe. He was able to film the MDC's general secretary, Tendai Biti, in leg irons in jail.

Biti, now on bail, faces treason charges which carry the death penalty. He said of leaving the country: "I don't regret doing this, although it is a painful decision I have taken. "We can live without the memories of seeing dead bodies in the prison, dead bodies in the street, dead bodies in my family. "I've lost my uncle. My father was also beaten by Zanu-PF. I am praying to God: please God deal with Zanu-PF ruthlessly."

Read other items from this source >

Free Zimbabwe on Global Pulse >
.............................................

Investigator Blasts U.S. Justice System
30th June 2003

After a two-week fact-finding tour of U.S. prison and detention facilities, a U.N. human rights investigator has blasted the administration of President George W. Bush for a rash of shortcomings in the country's flawed justice system and continued violations of the rule of law.

Unleashing a stinging barrage of attacks, Professor Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary and arbitrary executions, singles out the existence of racism in the application of the death penalty in the United States, and the lack of transparency in the deaths of prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility housing suspected terrorists.

Full Report >
.............................................