Pan-African parliament delays Zimbabwe rights investigation News
Pan-African parliament delays Zimbabwe rights investigation

[JURIST] Pan-African Parliament [official website] officials said over the weekend that the recently approved investigation [press release] into alleged human rights abuses in Zimbabwe [JURIST news archive] would be delayed. Zimbabwe has expressed strong opposition [JURIST report] to the PAP initiative and Zimbabwean permanent secretary for Foreign Affairs Ministry Joey Bimha warned that police and government officials will only cooperate with an investigation approved by the South African Development Community [official website] to be headed by South African President Thabo Mbeki [BBC profile]. PAP officials said that the organization needed to focus on other initiatives and was postponing consideration of the fact-finding mission to Harare until its next meeting in November.

Zimbabwe has routinely resisted any attempts to conduct outside investigations of alleged human rights abuses, regularly pointing to other African countries as examples of worse situations or claiming Western government exaggerations [Zimbabwe UN ambassador interview, recorded audio] of alleged abuses. ZimOnline has more.

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