Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Human Rights Watch: Zambia Police Brutality Widespread

   Selah Hennessy | London 07 September 2010
   Zambia riot police officers arrest a young man in Lusaka (file photo)

Photo: AP

   Zambia riot police officers arrest a young man in Lusaka (file photo)

   Zambia's  prisons  are the focus of a new report published by [1]Human
   Rights  Watch.  Police  brutality is widespread, the report says, with
   inmates  regularly  beaten  with  metal  bars, hammers, or electrified
   rods.
   Director  of  Health  and  Human Rights division at Human Rights Watch
   Joseph Anon says interviews with inmates at Zambia's prisons unearthed
   widespread abuses.
   "What  we  found  were  that the police routinely would bring in large
   numbers  of  people including family members of suspects and then they
   would torture people," Anon said.
   He says the brutality that was recounted was severe.
   "They  were  hung  by  their  feet  upside  down,  sometimes  sexually
   assaulted,  beaten  on their feet, on their hands, on their backs with
   metal  bars  or  with  wooden batons, sometimes with electric tazors,"
   Anon added.
   Human  Rights  Watch  says  many  prisoners  had scars and injuries as
   evidence of their treatment.
   Some  female  detainees  said  they  had been offered their freedom in
   exchange for sex.
   Human Rights Watch carried out its research in six Zambian prisons. It
   says  officials  in Zambia have not responded to letters from the body
   requesting an investigation.
   Amon  says  Zambian police officials have told Human Rights Watch that
   the  incidents  of abuse are isolated. But Anon says the accounts that
   he and his fellow researchers heard were consistent and indicated that
   beatings are widespread and systematic.
   "I  think  that  it's  happening  with  the  knowledge  of  the police
   authorities  and  without  any  adequate measures of accountability or
   insistence that these practices be ended," Anon said.
   A Zambian police spokesman refused to comment when contacted about the