A BEITBRIDGE-BASED lawyer has complained about the poor state of police cells in the border town saying they are horrific and not fit for humans.
Beitbridge lawyer Jabulani Mzinyathi pleaded with the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs ministry and relevant authorities to correct the situation.
Mzinyathi raised concerns about the police cells conditions when he appeared before provincial magistrate Vavariro Gavi representing two clients last week after being asked if they had any complaints against the police.
He said his clients were kept in inhumane and unhygienic cells.
“A foul stench of human excreta pervades your nostrils when you get to the dark, dank cells. These are hardly fit for human habitation,” Mzinyathi.
He said the cells were an assault on the right to human dignity as enshrined in section 51 of the Constitution.
“Putting a fellow human being in such cells constitutes inhuman or degrading treatment as per section 53 of the Constitution,” he said.
“There is a foul stench and human waste lying all over. The cells are unpleasant and not fit for anyone to be held there.
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“Rather, people must be kept in an open space reserved for exercises. Those cells are horrible and should be attended to.
“My clients complained about prison conditions and I want to bring it to the attention of the court that people are being kept in unfit places.”
Gavi ordered the State represented by Tawanda Chigavazira to look into the issue.
She granted bail to Sylvester Antonio and Simbarashe Brian Mudiwa, two policemen from Buchwa Mine ZRP who appeared before her on charges of trying to illegally import pre-owned vehicles using forged rebate letters.
Both are denying the charge and were released on ZWL$350 000 bail each.
They are expected to return to court early next year.
According to the Justice ministry, there are 46 prisons in Zimbabwe.
Two are exclusively for female inmates, 17 for men only, and the rest are mixed gender.
In 2022, the World Prison Brief, published by the University of London’s Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, ranked Zimbabwe’s prisons as the 75th most overcrowded globally on a list of 203 countries.
The database lists its occupancy rate at 130%.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa pardons prisoners every year, but the move has not helped to decongest the prisons.
