Whenever I visit a Police Station in Lusaka, even on routine matters, a cold shiver runs down my spine. It's the knowledge that some of the people kept in the police cells have been routinely tortured during interrogation by the police.

Most of this is hidden away from the public eye, but if one listens to the reports coming out before the current "Commission of Inquiry into the Allegations of Torture, Abuse or Violation of human rights on the persons suspected of involvement in the attempted coup of 28th October 1997", they would make your hair stand on end.

I have been following up the case of one such alleged case. Bertha Mugamanzila was a Grade 12 student in Matero Girls' Secondary School. During the Grade 12 exams in November 1998, she was accused of having brought a piece of paper into the examination hall, which was said to have contained answers to the exam questions.

The Headmistress was called as was the Examination Council of Zambia. After questioning in the headmistress' office she was brought to Matero Police Station for questioning and was locked up in the police cells.

The case is still being heard as an inquest as the Lusaka Boma Courts, but the facts before the court show that Bertha died in custody in the cells. The magistrate, Mr F. Tembo, still has to hear all the evidence and determine whether there was foul play or not.

If he is convinced that the evidence shows that her death was caused by torture or some other form of violence, under Zambian law he is required to return an "open verdict". This means that there is a criminal case to answer and the State is required to pursue the matter. Unfortunately there have been a large number of adjournments and the case has been again deferred to late March.

A friend of mine asked me recently, "Why are you so interested in this case?" I told her firstly, since I had worked for a year in Matero Parish and occasionally go back to help in the Parish, I felt a bond with Bertha's family over the tragic loss of a young girl in the prime of her life.

Secondly, as a Jesuit priest, I'm interested in a Christian faith that expresses itself in justice. This means, especially in the Jubilee year, reflecting the mind of Christ and being concerned about freeing the captives and those who walk in the shadow of death.

It means not only caring for Bertha's family but also trying to see the underlying causes which lead to such situations.

Our faith in Jesus and in his salvation must have something to say both to Bertha's family and to the structures that encourage events such as the one that lead to her death.

Recently Amnesty International, the highly respected human rights group, published a report entitled: "ZAMBIA: Applying the law fairly or fatally? Police violations of human rights" (April 1999). The report, available at JCTR, makes compelling reading. Case after case of torture is described. The victims' own words are very moving as they describe what happened to them.

"Although the Zambian Constitution, both in the 1991 and 1996 versions, guarantees every person in Zambia protection from inhuman treatment, including torture, there is a loophole in the Zambian laws on evidence and procedure which promotes the use of torture by police. Evidence obtained by torture is admissible and can be used to convict a suspect."

This last sentence jumped off the page for me: "Evidence obtained by torture is admissible and can be used to convict suspect." I just couldn't accept that this was true. I consulted a few lawyers to get their opinion. One of them, a law student, gave me a written reply:

When a suspect confesses to a crime after being tortured, the court will not admit that confession on grounds that it was illegally obtained. However, the court will admit any 'consequential discovery' arising from the illegally obtained confession. This means that the court will admit any other evidence uncovered as a result of the torture confession obtained by police and use it to convict the accused.

This has proved to be one the main reasons why torture has not been effectively eradicated in this country. For as long as police officers know that they can torture a suspect into giving them information leading to the solution of a crime, torture will continue to be a hallmark of Zambia's police system.

This is extracted from "Enforcement of the Right to Freedom from Torture in Zambia", a directed research being conducted by Milimo Moyo in part fulfilment of a Bachelor of Laws Degree.

This point was confirmed by the Zambia Institute of Advanced Legal Education. During a Seminar held at the Institute in July 1998 on Human Rights and the Law, Justice P. Chitengi cited a decision of the Zambian Supreme Court (Liswaniso v The People) on illegally obtained evidence. The Justice stated that the principle in Zambia is that evidence is admissible so long as it is relevant.

The seminar noted that junior Police officers are sometimes "over enthusiastic" in the performance of their duties. Such "over enthusiasm" which leads the police to discover evidence which may convict a suspect can also lead to a person being tortured

cruelly, perhaps maimed for life and, as in the case of Bertha, can lead to one's death.

Theological Reflection invites us to ponder on this situation both from the point of view of those who suffer in our police cells and from the point of view of our faith. Our faith tells us that such torture of people, whether innocent or not, is a gross violation of their dignity as children of God.

Our faith goes further and invites us to condemn the practice of torture here, or in any country, as gravely sinful. And in this Jubilee Year, our faith invites us to see that such sinful situations are brought to light and allowed to be changed and healed with the saving power of Christ who himself was unjustly tortured and brutally killed.

Theological reflection is also meant to lead to action, not only analysing, but also seeking to change unjust situations and the unjust systems that cause them. It's about allowing the salvation of Jesus which we celebrate in the Jubilee year to have a real effect on sinful situations such as the prevalence of torture in our police cells.

One such action would be mobilising public opinion so that the laws of evidence which are so intimately connected with torture would be changed. The current Commission of Inquiry into the allegations of Torture is inviting personal and written submissions.

The Commission, according to its terms of reference, is "to recommend appropriate administrative or disciplinary measures that should be taken in order to avoid recurrence of torture, abuse or violations of human rights during investigations by security and police forces and to recommend measures to improve on investigative methods by the said forces."

It seems to me that to eliminate torture in Zambia, the Commission of Inquiry needs to recommend to the Government and to the Law Reform Commission that the laws of Zambia need to be amended so as to make inadmissible any "consequential discovery" of evidence arising from an illegally obtained confession.

If one were tortured, the only recourse they would have is the prosecution of the torturer for "assault occasioning grievous bodily harm". This is inadequate in the face of the enormity of the offence of torture. Again we need to call on the Commission to recommend that torture be explicitly made illegal in Zambia.

Even though Zambia has ratified the Convention against torture, the instrument will not be applicable in Zambian courts until Parliament enacts a law giving the ratified international convention legal effect. Why don't we mobilise ourselves in our communities and organisations to call on the Commission to recommend that Parliament enact such a law this year 2000?

The Permanent Human Rights Commission has no powers to institute prosecutions against officers accused of torture. All that it can do is to make recommendations to the President. Accordingly the Commission of Inquiry needs to insist that the powers of the PHRC be strengthened so that it can institute proceedings through the courts when there is evidence of torture.

The Amnesty International report, which is well worth reading, has 10 recommendations on the same lines. It makes the point that there needs to be widespread education of the public in Zambia of what goes on in our police cells. There also needs to be a culture which clearly says that such conduct is not acceptable.

Inculturation is a two way process bringing the Gospel to dialogue with a culture, enhancing what is good in the culture but also challenging what is not good. It seems to me that as well as lobbying our MP's so the laws of Zambia regarding torture should be changed, there is something else that needs to be done.

Violence and torture actually begin in people's hearts and in our culture, the way we look at things, in our attitudes. I would hazard a guess based on a number of conversations over the years that many citizens and residents of Zambia feel that when a suspect is caught he or she deserves what they call "panel beating", "kampelwa" or "knocking a little sense into them".

With crime on the increase in the country, people are tend to adopt attitudes of fear. The trouble is when such attitudes are tolerated or even encouraged it actually empowers the police to use torture. The result is a tragedy such as the death of Bertha Mugamanzila.

Surely, if our Christian faith goes any way deep it must make one realise that such attitudes are unacceptable. No one who claims to follow Jesus can at the same time hold such opinions. No matter how terrible the crime committed, it does not justify another crime, that of torture, to find evidence to convict a suspect.

Police work and detective work is hard. There are no short cuts. It takes time and patience to build up a case. There are acceptable methods of interrogation which need to be practised in our police cells and expected by our citizens and residents.

The Jubilee year is a year of repentance. "Repent and believe the Good News!" We need to examine our personal attitudes to torture and make our concerns known to our MP's and the Law

Reform Commission of Zambia. If our attitudes and the laws in Zambia regarding torture were to change this year it would be a wonderful way to make the year 2000 a true year of Jubilee.

As God says through the prophet Jeremiah:

Practice honesty and integrity; rescue the one who has been wronged from the hands of his oppressor; do not exploit the stranger, the orphan, the widow; do no violence; shed no innocent blood. (Jeremiah 22:3)