40th session of the UPR Working Group - Review of Zimbabwe

President,

Sweden acknowledges that Zimbabwe has ratified important international conventions on human rights, both within the United Nations and the African Union, welcomed visits by UN special rapporteurs and made encouraging statements as to political and human rights reform. However, serious concerns remain over impunity and recurring human rights violations against representatives from civil society, opposition political parties and media, the lack of an independent judiciary, as well as the absence of meaningful reforms in relation to the country’s past track record on human rights.

Sweden would like to make the following recommendations:

1. Take swift actions to end the impunity for human rights violations, including by following up on the recommendations made by the Motlanthe Commission on the issue of individual responsibility.
2. Enable free, fair, and transparent elections 2023 and in the future by undertaking substantive and concrete political and electoral reforms, including the implementation of the recommendations issued in the report of the EU Election Observation Mission to Zimbabwe in 2018.
   
   
3. Take all necessary measures, including legislation, to ensure an independent judiciary.

Thank you