UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Mary Robinson, today expressed alarm at the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe where President Robert Mugabe has clamped down on opponents and the media.
|
|
Ms Mary Robinson
|
Ms Robinson called for action over what she described as a real human rights crisis in Zimbabwe.
"The scale of documented cases of rights abuses against members of opposition groups, the independent media and human rights groups is alarming," she said in a statement.
Zimbabwe has been plunged into its biggest political and economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, with widespread violent seizures of white-owned land and attacks on the independence of the judiciary.
Ms Robinson said she was worried the situation would deteriorate further, with the risk of ever-wider confrontation in the run-up to elections set for March.
President Mugabe, who has ruled since independence, has called the ballot for March 9-10 but opposition leaders say the election will be neither free nor fair.
The government will send an amended version of a controversial media bill to parliament next week. Local journalists and Western governments have said the bill will destroy press freedoms in the country.
Ms Robinson said the recent human rights breaches were aggravated by a climate of impunity, particularly since the attacks on the judiciary intensified.
"Real democracy requires full respect for human rights immediately," she said, adding her office was ready to extend any help it could in moving toward that objective.