Zimbabwe rights violations rising-report

Human rights violations, including torture, assault and unlawful detention, nearly doubled in Zimbabwe over the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2006, according to a new report by a local rights watchdog.

The report by the independent Human Rights Forum in Harare documented 5,307 human rights violations from January through the end of June compared to 2,868 during the same period a year ago. It was posted on the group's Web site dated Friday and published Wednesday by ZimOnline, an independent Zimbabwean news service based in South Africa.

The group said the violations included two politically linked deaths, 328 cases of torture, 481 assaults by state personnel and militants, 802 cases of unlawful arrest and detention, 935 incidents of political victimization and intimidation, and 1,937 violations of freedom of expression and movement.

The group said it did not include the deaths of two other opposition activists in its report because evidence in the cases was still being collected.

The Human Rights Forum, a group of 16 non-governmental organizations based in Harare, produces regular reports on human rights violations in the country. It also provides legal and social assistance to victims of organized violence and torture, according to its Web site, and was founded in 1998 when President Robert Mugabe deployed troops to crush food riots triggered by soaring inflation.

Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, blamed largely on the seizures of thousands of white-owned farms began in 2000. Unemployment is around 80 percent, and foreign investment, loans and development aid have dried up.

To stifle potential political unrest, Mugabe has violently cracked down on opposition movements, launched mass arrests and asserted increasing control over media and communications.

There was no immediate public response from the Zimbabwe government to the report. But the government in the past few months has justified its clampdown on opposition activists by saying they are part of a Western conspiracy to harm the country.

On Wednesday, the pro-democracy group Women of Zimbabwe Arise said 19 of its activists, both men and women, had been arrested the day before while playing sports in the southern town of Masvingo and were being held in police cells.

No reason for their detention was given, the group said in a statement. The group is known for staging surprise political demonstrations and regularly having members arrested under sweeping security laws, but it said it had staged no recent protests in Masvingo.

In March, Morgan Tsvangirai and other top opposition leaders were assaulted and arrested when police violently broke up a prayer meeting that had been deemed an illegal political gathering.

Mugabe later endorsed the assaults, telling leaders at a summit of the Southern African Development Community that Tsvangirai had "asked for it" and that police had the right to "bash" opponents intent on holding illegal violent protests.

He accused Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change of waging a campaign of terror with a series of gasoline bombings.

In addition to the political clampdown, more than 7,000 business executives, store managers and traders have been arrested since July in a drive to enforce a government order to slash prices of all goods and services by half.

Official inflation is 4,500 percent annually _ the highest in the world _ although independent estimates put it closer to 9,000 percent. The International Monetary Fund has forecast inflation could rise to 100,000 percent by the end of the year.