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Zimbabwe

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Luce, and I must meet, because I had intended to speak about a possible Commonwealth initiative, about which I am in touch with the Secretariat. I prefer to denounce the appalling treatment being meted out to members of civil society and the MDC, with 28 cases so far in the past three weeks, among them two Members of Parliament. That needs to go on the record. Violent beatings and torture have left innocent men and women blinded, deaf and unable to talk, quite apart from many broken limbs. They are told variously: ““We are going to take you one by one. By 2008, there will be no MDC. We’ll kill you all so that the party does not succeed””; ““If we hear of you at the MDC offices or at a rally, we shall kill you. You will just disappear””; ““Go home and you will find your wife and children are not there””. As well as being brutally beaten, prisoners are denied food, water and medicines and are said to have resisted arrest. The list of victims includes a respected black cameraman, abducted and beaten to death, and two MPs. The CIO claims that it is looking for petrol bombs, but, it says: ““This is about death. If you do not admit to one of three offences, you will die. Leave Zimbabwe within seven days or you disappear””. All the cases, and this is only from a list covering the past few weeks, have had this in common: they were abducted in the middle of the night. Most have been brutally beaten and tortured; all have been denied access to their lawyers, visits by friends and family, food, access to vital medication as well as medical care and worst of all their constitutional and legal rights to be released on the orders of the Attorney-General. The rule of law has broken down. I hope that the names of all the torturers, many of whom are known, will be posted daily on the internet. I have one question: many of those being tortured are students and young people. How many childrenof ZANU-PF Ministers are peacefully studying in this country, some claiming to have MDC sympathies?