28 CASES OF TORTURE IN PRISONS BETWEEN 2006 AND 2009

There were “about 28 cases reported” of torture and other forms of ill-treatment of prisoners in Mozambican jails between 2006 and 2009, according to Justice Minister Benvinda Levi.Speaking in Maputo at a follow-up meeting to the review of Mozambique’s human rights record in Geneva on 1 February, under the Universal Periodic Mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council, Levi said that torture in the prisons was not as widespread as sometimes claimed.She said it was a problem that deeply concerned her ministry, and that measures are taken against any prison official involved in such abuses.However, Alice Mabota, chairperson of the Human Rights League (LDH), who headed the delegation from Mozambican civil society organisations to the Geneva meeting, pointed out that the worst abuses take place, not in prisons, but in police stations.She praised Levi for cracking down on abuses in the prisons – but the police are not under the jurisdiction of the Justice Ministry. Mabota claimed that torture and even summary executions are continuing – but in police stations.Mabota urged Levi to make other members of the government aware of the need to enter into dialogue with human rights bodies. The LDH, she said, has a good relationship with the Justice Ministry and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs – but not with the Ministries of the Interior, Health or Education.The review meeting in Geneva produced 169 recommendations for Mozambique, made by 53 countries. Levi said her delegation immediately accepted 131 of these, because they are “in accordance with our plan of government. Basically 92 of them are already under implementation”.Eight of these recommendations concerned gender equity, a further eight domestic violence, while five concerned the fight against corruption. The government was in agreement with these recommendations, and “we want to advance”, said Levi.There were several calls on Mozambique to make its National Human Rights Commission operational. Levi said this is in motion and over the next few months the government, the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, and civil society bodies should appoint or elect members to this new body.The delegation took no position on 28 recommendations. “We did not have information to take a decision”, said Levy. At the next Geneva meeting, in June, “we may be able to give a position”.Only 10 recommendations were rejected outright, one of them for the insulting language it used, which Levi regarded as “an affront to our sovereignty”. Levi did not say which country was responsible for this, but, judging from the UN record of the meeting, it can only be the United States, which had taken the opportunity to harangue Mozambique about the misdeeds of the National Elections Commission (CNE) in the 2009 presidential and parliamentary elections. The US representative then made, not recommendations, but demands that Mozambique “draft, enact and implement legislation that provides greater protection for political rights”.Two of the rejected recommendations, from Slovenia and Ghana, called on the Mozambican government to make greater efforts to reintegrate former girl soldiers into society. Levi pointed out that the war of destabilisation ended in 1992, and “anyone who was a girl then, certainly isn’t a girl now”.Switzerland called for access to health insurance for people on low incomes. Levi said the government is in no position to provide health insurance for anyone, regardless of their income. Alice Mabota thought there had been a misunderstanding and that what the Swiss delegation really wanted was an expansion in the social security systemSeveral of the recommendations (from France, Holland and Spain) called for the repeal of laws supposedly criminalizing homosexuality. These countries were clearly misled by a UN claim that the Mozambican Penal Code outlaws gay sex. In fact, neither the Penal Code, nor any other law makes any explicit reference to homosexual activity, and nobody has ever been prosecuted for same sex relations in the history of independent Mozambique. Levi explained at the meeting that, in reality, gay sex is not a criminal activity in Mozambique.An association representing gays and other sexual minorities, LAMBDA, exists and nobody has tried to stop it from holding meetings or publishing its newsletter. However, LAMBDA is angered at the refusal of the Justice Ministry to grant it registration as an NGO, an issue which Holland took up at the Geneva meeting, without success.