Kenya / Nairobi: Just outside Parliament now

Posted by admin - 30/11/07 at 07:11:59 pm

Just outside Kenyan Parlement now. It’s still quiet, riot police are around and an old lady is removing dust from the streets in front of the Parliament buildings, thus giving them a final touch. She…

Read about the whereabouts of independent Africa Correspondent Arjen Westra. travelling the continent and reporting on things he sees and hears and…. smells.

My Rights, My Struggle - Torture in Zimbabwe: A Photographic Exhibition

Posted by admin - 17/11/07 at 12:11:06 am

States in Transition Observatory, an ongoing project of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), together with Amnesty International is currently hosting a photographic exhibition at Constitutional Hill exhibiting pictures of victims of torture carried out between the 29 March election and the 27 June presidential election run-off in Zimbabwe 2008.

IDASA has made the photos available to view online, click here to view the exhibition.

Below is an introduction to the exhibtion, as found on the IDASA website.

All of the photos in this Exhibition are pictures of victims of torture carried out between the 29 March election and the 27 June presidential election run-off in 2008.

The perpetrators of the violence include soldiers, so-called “war veterans” from Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle and other supporters of the ruling party in Zimbabwe, ZANU-PF. The Zimbabwean authorities were directly involved in acts of torture and ill treatment and also condoned the perpetration of these human rights violations by other groups. Police failed to investigate the vast majority of these violations and acted in a partisan manner, investigating cases of violence allegedly perpetrated by opposition supporters and not cases perpetrated by supporters of the ruling party.

Some of the people in the photographs are human rights defenders. Others are political activists and supporters of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. The photos demonstrate the willingness of the Zimbabwean authorities to resort to violence, including torture, in order to intimidate and silence perceived opponents.

Look. Read. Tell someone about it.

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Out of Lüderitz for a change

Posted by admin - 07/11/07 at 10:11:08 am

Today I was called by Brightstart - the local montessori school - asking me to join them on a farmer/adventure camp next Friday. Of course I have to grab this great opportunity to leave the little town of Lüderitz behind for a while and so I replied yes.

So next Friday I’ll travel to Aus (about 90 km from here) and there I’ll be abseiling and farming etc with the kids. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? I am looking forward to it. Sadly for Anna, this means I’ll have to leave her alone in Lüderitz for a week, but we have discussed it and she’s okay with it.

I’ve also talked to the printers today and if everything goes right we’ll have are very first homemade Buchter News by Wednesday - very exciting.

Other than that not much is going on around here. Same routine, different day. I’m really looking forward to December to go out and see a bit of Namibia and South Africa. And because we’ll be gone until January it will - hopefully - help make the time pass a bit quicker as well (yes sometimes it does get boring here).

I’ll keep updating and I’ll put some more pictures up tomorrow!

Cheers, Hidde