Ahead of the Zimbabwe elections due to take place later this year, our local group wrote to the South African Development Community (SADC) asking it to help ensure that the 2013 Zimbabwe elections will be free from the violence that occurred during the elections in 2008, which resulted in over 200 people being killed, at least 9,000 injured and 28,000 displaced. Torture and ill-treatment of opposition supporters was widely reported. Human rights defenders and political activists and their family members were abducted, and human rights violations were often carried out with impunity. There has still been no accountability for the majority of the human rights violations that occurred at this time.

We called on SADC to:

• Press the Zimbabwean authorities to undertake measures to ensure the 2013 elections are free from violence against peaceful human rights defenders, civil society activists and all supporters of political parties, before, during and after the elections.

• Urge the Zimbabwean authorities to allow human rights defenders, civil society activists and all supporters of political parties to peacefully exercise their right to freedom of expression, association and assembly.

• Pressure the Zimbabwean authorities to investigate all reports of political violence that occurs in the context of the 2013 elections and ensure the perpetrators are held to account for that violence.

• Deploy election observers, including human rights monitors, before, during and after the Zimbabwe elections.