By IPS Correspondents
JOHANNESBURG, May 18 2007 (IPS)

There has been widespread anger at the police beating earlier this month of Law Society of Zimbabwe President Beatrice Mtetwa and three other lawyers: Terence Fitzpatrick, Colin Kuhini and Chris Mhike.

The four were assaulted after gathering May 8 with several dozen of their colleagues in the capital, Harare, to present a petition to Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa protesting the detention of lawyers Alec Muchadahama and Andrew Makoni.

According to a May 16 statement from the International Bar Association, these two men were arrested and charged with terrorism for representing members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe’s main opposition party. The MDC has, in turn, been accused of mounting a terror campaign to unseat President Robert Mugabe, a charge the party denies.

Police said the May 8 gathering was illegal. However this claim was contested by Mtetwa, a long-time defender of human rights in Zimbabwe who has received the International Press Freedom Award, given by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. She is also the recipient of the Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Award.

The beatings come in the midst of the latest crackdown on opposition supporters and rights activists in Zimbabwe, which has already experienced several years of political and economic disarray marked by flawed elections, rights abuses, rampant inflation and high unemployment.

IPS correspondent Moyiga Nduru recently interviewed Mtetwa, who also underwent rough treatment at the hands of police in 2003.

Beatrice Mtetwa (BM): There is lawlessness in Zimbabwe. We are not the first or the last to be assaulted by the police. A lot of ordinary Zimbabweans go through state brutality everyday. We were assaulted because we had the temerity to present a petition about the harassment of lawyers…

We wrote to the police chief that we were going to present a petition as a matter of courtesy, (but) we could have presented the petition without asking permission because it’s our constitutional right. We said we were not going to disrupt traffic, and we identified a particular route. We wore our gowns to avoid having some hooligans masquerade as lawyers.

IPS: Could you describe the assault?

BM: When the beating was going on it was severe, bizarre. We were driven some distance away, told to disembark and lie face down before being subjected to beatings by the riot police in full view of the public. Everybody was so afraid because of the police presence.

We were rescued by some police officers who were driving past that route and had nothing to do with us. They stopped and told their colleagues that the motorists watching us being beaten might be taking pictures to splash around the world. They didn’t like (the possibility of) bad publicity.

It was thuggery. State thuggery.

IPS: What other challenges do you face practicing law in Zimbabwe at present?

BM: It’s hard. You get a call that your client has been arrested. You struggle for two days or more to find out where your client is. You struggle for another day to find out the charges filed against your client from the police. To make it worse, police ignore court orders.

In a nutshell, law and order have broken down in Zimbabwe…The report we wrote about the assault on us – no police station wants to take it. How do you expect police to investigate their own colleagues?

IPS: How have these difficulties affected your profession?

BM: Some members of the profession get intimidated. Others refuse to take sensitive cases – complaints by opposition and civil society; (but) lawyers have come out in numbers to show they will not surrender their independence without a fight.

IPS: Millions of Zimbabweans have fled these hardships. Do you every think of joining them?

BM: I’m too old to start anywhere else. I’m too old to move (laughing). I’m not a quitter. Besides, it would mean abandoning my responsibility.

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