Staff Reporter| MDC Alliance Treasurer General, Senator David Coltart’s son Doug, was over the weekend assaulted by the police, while he was on duty representing trade union leader, Obert Masaraure, at the Harare Central Police Station.

The young Coltart a leading human rights advocate, was brutally assaulted with bloody images of him being shared on social media, as his client Masaraure, President of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ), commented on social media, “My heart bleeds for @DougColtart who was brutally assaulted when he brought me food yesterday (Saturday).”

Coltart’s bruised pictures have since gone viral on social media, with Zimbabweans reacting with utmost disgust to the level of impunity that law enforcement agents carry out their duties, violating fundamental human rights and freedoms.

This is against a background of continued police brutality, latest roundly condemned incident being last Wednesday, when scores were injured, in a security crackdown, during opposition leader Advocate Nelson Chamisa’s Hope of the Nation Address (HONA) at the party headquarters Harvest House. Many of those injured are still recovering in hospital.

Coltart indicated to Africa Legal News that he was recovering after receiving some medical attention.
“Got some cuts and bruises, but I have received medical attention,” said the human rights lawyer.
Coltart is not the first lawyer to be attacked in the line of duty, others include, incidents in 2007, when police beat up past President of the Law Society of Zimbabwe, Beatrice Mtetwa and other lawyers during a protest against harassment of lawyers and the arrest of fellow human rights lawyers Andrew Makoni and Alec Muchadehama.

Earlier this year in January lawyers in the country hit the streets in protest against being harassed while on duty.

TimesLIVE quoted Mtetwa at the time, who said that she was “excited” by the march by the country’s lawyers as she led an entourage of senior, middle and junior lawyers to hand their grievances to the court’s officials for the attention of chief justice Luke Malaba.
“We want respect for the constitution, human rights and the conduct of trials to be done in a fair manner,” Mtetwa told journalists after she handed over the lawyers’ grievances to court officials.