Prison conditions are reportedly harsh. The right of free assembly is constitutionally guaranteed but generally respected only for groups that the government deems non-political. Union demonstrations were banned in November. The founder of the Southern African Human Rights Foundation, Archbald Ngcobo, escaped from Zimbabwe to Zambia in April, but was handed back to his country s authorities in December. His fate is unknown.
Religious practice is respected.
A 1997 report detailed the officially sanctioned brutality of the repression of Ndebele rebels in the mid 1980s, in which thousands of people were murdered by government forces, but perpetrators of the violence still enjoy impunity. Mugabe has continued his verbal attacks on homosexuals, describing them as worse than pigs. However, former President Cannan Banana, who fled to South Africa after his conviction for sodomizing a bodyguard, returned to the country in December and reportedly may receive a presidential pardon. A small independent print media is overshadowed by state-run media, and election media coverage is heavily slanted in the ruling party s favor. In December, a popular talk show which voiced the public s increasing disenchantment with Mugabe was canceled.