Interviews with Jestina Mukoko

It was after 21 days – and initially they had said that they wanted me to be a state witness, and probably I didn’t pass that test of becoming a state witness. And after 21 days I was handed to the police, now being prosecuted for having recruited young people, facilitated their training in neighboring Botswana for them to come back into the country and engage in acts of sabotage, terrorism and overthrow a constitutionally elected government.

I found it strange that I could be accused of something like that, something that I never came close to. And when I was handed to the police, the police were given strict instructions that I was not supposed to be visited by family and I was not supposed to be visited by lawyers. And even on the day when I went to court, I had not been briefed that I was going to court. A vehicle just came, picked me up and I was driven to court. And I recognized I was at court. And I had not had an opportunity to speak to a legal representative.

I was worried because I didn’t know what I was going to do in the courthouse without having spoken to a lawyer before. And there was no one to ask. What I recognized was that the vehicle that took me to court – I was flanked by heavily armed police officers on either side. And what was going through my mind was I must have committed something very serious if I have to be escorted in this manner. And when we got to the courtroom, there were more police officers with these big guns. And it was only at the courthouse that I was then able to see a legal representative. And obviously we didn’t have time to go through everything, because we now had to get into court, and this was on Christmas Eve. And before then, the day before, I had actually been driven to my home.

The police had a search warrant, and the search warrant detailed that they were looking for arms of war and money. And so when they presented that to my mother and my mother-in-law, my mother said: Are you looking for arms of war in this house? And they said yes. And they went through everything. They ransacked the house, looking for the arms of war and the money, and they didn’t find anything. What they took away was an old computer and information that I had in the house about different civil society organizations that we worked with, things that were eventually given back to me because they didn’t find anything. And so when I appeared in court, I was sent to a maximum-security prison for a fate of 68 days. And I think my battles then started in the courts. I spent my first Christmas away from home, not only away from home, but also in a prison.

My family came on Christmas Day with all the goodies, but it wasn’t easy for me to enjoy all that, because I had to go through it on my own without my family; they only saw me for 20 minutes. And the next time that I appeared in court, I was in leg irons and I was handcuffed. My son was sitting on the first row in the courtroom. I felt so degraded as a mother. The way I appeared as a dangerous criminal, I just could not take it that my son looked up to me, and now what he saw was something else different. I eventually had to have the handcuffs and the leg irons removed when my lawyer insisted that there was no way that the process was going to go on with me in that condition.

I was also prevented from seeking medical attention. I was hypertensive, and I had high blood sugar. Twice I was taken to a hospital and denied the opportunity to be admitted and receive medical treatment because they insisted that I was a threat to national security. I really don’t understand how they got to that conclusion when I was not even part of the scheme that they were accusing me of.

Jestina M. Mukoko is the National Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, a nonprofit organization that monitors and documents political violence in Zimbabwe. As Zimbabwe’s premier monitoring body, the organization maintains a strong network throughout the country that is able to bring widespread attention to occurrences of political violence.

A long-time leader in the human rights and activist communities in Zimbabwe, Ms. Mukoko was abducted from her home on December 3, 2008, by state security agents for her work monitoring the brutality of the Robert Mugabe government. During her 21-day abduction, she was tortured, beaten, and forced to confess to a crime she did not commit. She remained detained until a court granted her bail on March 2, 2009.

For her steadfastness on issues related to human rights, Jestina Mukoko was named the 2009 Laureate of the City of Weimar (Germany) Human Rights Prize and a 2010 recipient of the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. In 2009, Ms. Mukoko was awarded the NANGO (National Association of Nongovernmental Organizations) Peace Award. For her commitment and perseverance, she received the French National Order of the Legion of Honor award in 2011.

She serves on several boards, including those of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, and the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for Zimbabwe. A former news anchor for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, she is also mentoring with the Female Students Network, a youth organization.

A peace and human rights campaigner, Jestina Mukoko is also a mother. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Politics and Administration from the University of Zimbabwe. Ms. Mukoko was the 2010 Fellow at the Oak Institute for International Human Rights at Colby College in Maine. In 2012, she joined other mid-career professionals as a Draper Hills Summer Fellow on Democracy and Development Program at Stanford University.