Any person who commits homosexual activities in Zimbabwe will be arrested - Chinamasa

The Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa yesterday said any person who commits homosexual activities in Zimbabwe will be arrested.

Chinamasa said this after meeting the visiting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navanethem Pillay.

"Relatively, the meeting went very well. It was very frank, but very cordial. We made it clear that in our law homosexual activities are criminalised and that any person who commits homosexual activities will be arrested," he said.

Ms Pillay, who is in Harare at the Government's invitation, yesterday met Government officials as she assesses the human rights situation in the country.

She refused to speak to the media, saying she will issue a statement after completing her visit on Friday.

Ms Pillay, who is on a five-day visit, first met Minister Chinamasa who gave her the country's position on homosexuality and told her about the obtaining political situation.

Minister Chinamasa said there was no political violence in the country as claimed by some sections of the private and international media.

"There is no State-sponsored violence, these are all lies. We told her that there are no torture chambers in Zimbabwe. We need to investigate some of these torture reports so that we find out if the person was involved in a personal accident and say they are torture wounds. We will not accept it and this has been happening.

"All that has been written does not contain details of who was tortured and where they were tortured. We just see reports in the media. We want to know where it happened so that police can investigate."

Minister Chinamasa said he updated Ms Pillay on the challenges facing Zimbabwe, including the effects of the West's illegal sanctions.

He said Ms Pillay was, however, happy that Zimbabwe has functional institutions.

Minister Chinamasa was last night expected to host a dinner for Ms Pillay.

The UN envoy also met acting Foreign Affairs Minister Nicholas Goche in the morning.

Minister Goche said the envoy wanted to know what the country was doing to ensure a free and fair election.

"As we move towards elections, they asked what we are doing to ensure that we have violence free elections.

"We said the three parties in the inclusive Government are organising to move around the country and have joint rallies by party leaders.

"At these rallies, people will be urged to desist from violence," he said.

Minister Goche said parties in the inclusive Government might have differences, but that does not mean they were enemies.

He said Ms Pillay was happy that the country had ratified a number of protocols on human rights.

Before meeting Minister Goche, Ms Pillay had met Labour Minister Paurina Mpariwa.

Minister Mpariwa said she told Ms Pillay that Zimbabwe had not de-registered non governmental organisations.

"We informed her that we are registering them and doing skills training. They also inquired on whether we have deregistered NGOs and we said 'no' we have not de-registered anyone. It was just a mere statement by single individuals," she said.

In the afternoon, Ms Pillay met Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku at the Supreme Court.

Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba, Supreme Court judge Justice Rita Makarau and secretary for Justice and Legal Affairs Mr David Mangota also attended the meeting.

After the closed-door meeting, Chief Justice Chidyausiku told journalists that Ms Pillay wanted to know how the judiciary operated in Zimbabwe.

"Ms Pillay wanted to find out how the judiciary was operating in Zimbabwe and the challenges we are facing.

"We explained to her everything and she even assisted us with ways of overcoming the problems," he said.

Ms Pillay later held a joint meeting with officials from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the Zimbabwe Media Commission and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission.
The meeting was held at the ZEC offices.

ZEC deputy chairperson, Mrs Joice Kazembe, said the UN envoy made enquiries on the status of the voters' roll.

"She raised questions on the voters' roll and voter registration. She wanted to know whether there are any problems with the voters' roll."

Mrs Kazembe said Ms Pillay also sought to know how ZEC commissioners were appointed.

"There is fallacy that the commission was not changed and this is not true. We have not been proactive because of limited resources," she said.

Mrs Kazembe said the voters' roll was being cleaned by removing names of deceased persons.

"The voters' roll is currently being cleaned and deceased voters have been removed. It gets cleaned on a daily basis. It was a very good and open discussion," she said.

ZMC acting chairperson Dr Millicent Mombeshora said Ms Pillay raised issues to do with the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and whether the commission will license more radio and television stations ahead of the elections.

She said Ms Pillay believes in media self-regulation.

"She asked if we were going to license more radio and television stations before elections and also raised a few issues to do with AIPPA," Dr Mombeshora said.

Comments