Right to property is among the most violated rights in the country, the latest report of the National Human Rights Commission says.The 2012-2013 report, released yesterday before Members of both the Lower and Upper Chambers of Parliament, indicates that the commission received 1,172 complaints.Of these, 465 cases or 39 per cent are related to violation of rights to property, followed by the right to justice, at 19 per cent, and sexual violence with 11 per cent of all the cases received.While releasing the report, the chairperson of the commission, Madeleine Nirere said land is the most contentious issue.She said land wrangles started to increase with the issuing of the land titles since 2011, “because people have understood that land has become more precious asset.”Nirere, however, said “the situation is not alarming; rather, people were awaked by the laws in place to start demanding for their rights, which is different from previous years.”She cited the inheritance law which guarantees everybody, including women, their right to property as one of the factors compelling people to demand for their rights.It is understood that though there is a law that gives equal land rights to women and men, women, especially widows and orphans are often sidelined.On the status of the country’s prisons, the commission reported a remarkable decongestion trend.Increasing prisons “In some prisons, concentration is about 105 per cent per square meter due to the number of the Genocide inmates serving their time. For others, it is no longer a problem because inmates imprisoned over social issues do not stay in prison for more than two years and this has created more space inside the prisons.”Nirere said the Internal Security ministry is working on projects aimed at increasing the number of prisons, so as to further decongest cells.The report, meanwhile, notes that the country is doing well in human rights observation in general.She cited right to vote, right to information and other rights for specific categories of people which indicate that the country is on good track.The report says that 635 people were killed in the period July 2012-June 2013. Apparently, most cases were homicide.MP Immaculée Mukarurangwa described this as alarming.She said “these are many people and I think the local authorities and the security organs together with citizens should work hard to reverse the trend”.
