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NewsDay

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‘Human rights syllabus not new for police’

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POLICE recruits are taught human rights policing since the syllabus was introduced as part of the training curricular in 1995, a senior police officer said yesterday.

POLICE recruits are taught human rights policing since the syllabus was introduced as part of the training curricular in 1995, a senior police officer said yesterday.

REPORTBY STAFF REPORTER

National police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said cognisant of the fact that observance of human rights was the bedrock of any society, the diverse curricula was done at various police training institutions such as depot, police staff college and professional updating centres.

Charamba, in a statement, said police had not been pressured to incorporate human rights issues by the recently-constituted Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC).

Her remarks followed reports that ZHRC chairman Jacob Mudenda had met Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri in March this year and agreed to introduce the human rights curriculum in the police training syllabus.

“The assumption that some form of pressure to introduce human rights courses was exerted on the Commissioner-General of Police whilst in actual fact the courses are already part of the training curricula clearly defies logic and shows that there are some ominous agendas by your reporter,” Charamba said in reference to an article published by NewsDay last week.

Mudenda told Parliament last week that: “On March 4, 2013, we met police commissioners headed by Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri and we agreed that the police must be exposed to human rights issues, especially the promotion and protection aspects.

“We were informed they have a syllabus that they are following during their training sessions and we are looking at the syllabus and we will partner with them if we are satisfied it covers human rights issues.”