Freed Beatrice Mtetwa speaks out
By Never Kadungure
HARARE – Prominent Zimbabwe human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa who was finally freed on Friday after being illegally detained for 7 days has said her arrest and detention was an attack on all human rights lawyers in the country.
Mtetwa was finally released on US$500 bail by High Court judge Justice Joseph Musakwa. Speaking to journalists outside the High Court, Mtetwa said “It’s not a personal attack on me, but it’s a personal attack on all human rights lawyers.”
Mtetwa said she was “just being used as the example” and there “will be many more to follow. You know we are going into election mode so the warning is that if you think you can continue doing this and call yourself foolish human rights lawyers, this is what will happen to you and we will start with her.
The award winning lawyer revealed how her own lawyers were restricted from seeing her. “The police were definitely all out to get me. They wanted me to feel they are mighty and I felt it, but obviously you have to understand that I was in custody because the police wanted me to be in custody,” she said.
Mtetwa was arrested last Sunday while representing four aides of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai whose homes and offices were being ransacked. Her recording of the drama on her phone coupled with a demand for a search warrant and an inventory of items being seized appeared to annoy the police.
“The judge said that there has to be mutual respect between lawyers and the police because we will all be at work. Unfortunately, the police think that we have no right to be where they are searching and we have no right to ask for search warrants,” Mtetwa said after the court proceedings on Monday.
Justice Musakwa described Mtetwa as “a forceful, if not combative, personality” when it came to issues of defending her clients. If she was a commando, she would not take prisoners,” the judge said, drawing laughter from the packed courtroom.
