Maybe They Can Get a Prize Next Year if They're Still Alive...

More likely, they'll simply be ignored, since the left doesn't give a rat's ass about people suffering under Communism.

I seem to recall a failed former President babbling on about torture recently.

Guess he's no longer available for comment.

In a preliminary report detailing widespread state violence, including the torture and the unlawful detention of its members, a Zimbabwean social movement is warning southern Africa's political leaders to temper their optimism about the country's prospect of free and fair elections next year.

Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), whose 55,000 membership is comprised of women aged between 16 and 73, mainly in low-income employment, released its interim report after the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) expressed confidence in Zimbabwe's progress towards free and fair elections at its summit in August.

"WOZA members do not have the protection of the law and peaceful protest is met with brutal force," said the preliminary Report on Political Violence Against Members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise, compiled from a random sample of 15 percent (397 women) of the 2,200 interviews conducted with its members.

The interim report found that "WOZA members have suffered extreme abuse perpetrated by state actors", with 75 percent subjected to humiliating and degrading treatment, 50 percent suffering assaults and psychological torture, and 40 percent subjected to physical torture.

Half of those surveyed were detained longer than the statutory limit of 48 hours, while about a quarter of the sample group had sustained injuries requiring medical treatment.

According to the WOZA interim report, "A prerequisite to any such election [to be deemed free and fair] is the absence of violence, the presence of peace and the respect for the civil rights of all."

WOZA was established in 2003 to give women a voice in the worst economic crisis since Zimbabwe won its independence from Britain in 1980, to advocate female community leadership and encourage women to stand up for their rights and political freedoms. The organisation's national coordinator, Jenni Williams, has been arrested about 30 times and has been living in safe houses for the past three years in an attempt to avoid arrest.

Basic commodities, fuel, electricity and drinking water are in all short supply in Zimbabwe; it is estimated that as many as three million Zimbabweans, mostly men, have left the country since 2000. Inflation is officially assessed at more than 6,000 percent and four out of five people are unemployed. International donor agencies say more than a third of the country's 12 million population will require emergency food aid in the coming months.

Obviously, this pales in comparison to a terrorist having panties put on his head.