International human rights standards don’t bar police from breaking up an unlawful demonstration, but they do require police to avoid or at least minimize the use of force when those demonstrations are peaceful.
I spoke to several people in Harare who said they witnessed police using whips and batons to beat up older persons and women, including a woman with a child on her back. A member of the Zimbabwe Doctors Association for Human Rights (ZADHR) told me over the phone that she had treated several women for soft tissue injuries sustained from beatings by the police. Today’s brutality is at odds with Mnangagwa’s repeated promises to usher in a ‘new dispensation’ that embraces democracy and human rights , and that gross rights abuses would become a thing of Zimbabwe's past.
If the Mnangagwa government is serious about respecting the rule of law, then it should take steps to ensure that what happened today is not repeated. To show that Zimbabwe has made a clean break with its abusive past, authorities should investigate today’s violence and hold accountable those responsible for any abuses.