Jestina Mukoko back but life remains in danger

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Zimbabwe's Jestina Mukoko and Others Enters Court

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sourced by Miriam Mannak

By Miriam Mannak

Jestina Mukoko is back, after being forcefully abducted over three weeks ago. That does however not mean that she is out of danger. Together with nine other sympatisants the executive director of the Zimbabwean Peace Project is accused of plotting a coup against the government of Robert Mugabe. When found guilty, Mukoko faces the death penalty.

On December 24 Mukoko was seen for the first time in public after her kidnapping on December 3. The world sighed in relief, as many thought she was dead. The relief mounted when the High Court in Harare ordered the police to release Mukoko from custody, as well as the other nine accused and 21 remaining activists. 

"Their continued detention by whosoever is holding them be and is hereby declared unlawful, and they should be released forthwith," Omarjee said, adding that Mukoko and company had the right to receive medical treatment and to have access to lawyers and relatives.

Unfortunately, the joy was shortlived as the Zimbabwean authorities, which are being accused of torturing their victims, are ignoring the order and by so refusing to set free tthe activists.

Mukoko, the executive director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was kidnapped on December 3 after 15 police officers burst into her home in Norton, a small town situated 40km outside Zimbabwe’s Capital of Harare.

Over the past eight years, the Zimbabwe Peace Project has been involved in recording, monitoring and cataloguing incidents of violence and human rights abuses across the country. One of the main pillars of the project is a network of hundreds of monitors - people who provide detailed and reliable accounts of the campaigns of brutality across the country.