A prominent Zimbabwean human rights activist abducted 12 days ago was working on case files to be used as possible prosecution evidence against members of President Robert Mugabe's regime, according to reports.
Jestina Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), is the most prominent among 20 political and civil society activists who have disappeared in the past six weeks.
According to fellow campaigners, Mukoko had established a network of hundreds of monitors - mostly church people, teachers and ordinary township dwellers - who had provided handwritten testimonies of the campaigns of brutality carried out by Mugabe's government. The testimony could have been used in any future investigation of human rights abuses by the Mugabe regime. 'She had catalogued thousands of incidents of murder, assault, torture, arson, and who the perpetrators are. The work was so meticulous it could stand up in any court,' said one associate.
Lawyers and opposition politicians believe the abduction of Mukoko was carried out as part of a new campaign by elements in the ruling party to intimidate and hinder the work of those gathering incriminating evidence of human rights violations in the country. Most leading human rights figures have in recent days gone into hiding. The ZPP has closed and the National Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (Nango) has warned that 'there are reasons to fear for the safety of every activist in the land'.
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