Dear Friends,
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern that the results of presidential elections in Zimbabwe had not been released and urged the electoral authorities to discharge their responsibility and release the results expeditiously and with transparency. The Secretary General’s spokesperson issued a statement yesterday 07 April 2008, in which Mr Ban has noted that nine days after the elections, the results had yet to be released in spite of the constitutional deadline. He also called upon all actors to act responsibly, exercise restrain and calm, and to address all issues regarding the elections through recourse to legal means and dialogue. The statement can be accessed from the following link:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sgsm11498.doc.htm
Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), our member organisation, issued an alert yesterday on cases of violence that are being reported in Zimbabwe. ZPP is quite disturbed at the increase in cases of violence. Please find attached alert for more details.
MISA-Zimbabwe, our member organisation, has released yesterday 07 April 2008 the attached monthly alerts digest for the month of March 2008. This issue includes the election reporting monitoring updates. Their role also covers monitoring of the media, training and capacity building of media personnel, research and the distribution of information. Besides the training of journalists this election period, as informed by the MISA-Zimbabwe election reporting guidelines; MISA-Zimbabwe undertook to monitor the media’s coverage before, during and after the elections in as part of its research, named Walking the talk.
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ), our member organisation, released their 18th daily media update on 06 April 2008 in which main focus is on post-election. MMPZ is mainly criticising public broadcasters for failing to act on the late release of presidential elections. MMPZ is stunned by the government-run Sunday Mail for failing to provide news about presidential election and the reason the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is still holding onto the outcome. The paper is also criticised for failing to query the ruling party’s resolution to further delay the release of the results. Please see attached update.
Southern African Centre for Survivors of Torture (SACST) that is dedicated to the promotion and provision of medical, psychosocial and legal services to primary victims of organised violence and torture has released a report on the prevalence of organised violence and torture in Zimbabwe. In their latest report, SACST attempts to generate a more accurate estimate of the number of torture survivors seeking asylum in South Africa. Please find attached report for full information. WE WILL SOON PUBLISH EXTRACTS OF THE REPORT.
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