Release
On 28 June 2005, Bennett was released from Chikurubi Prison after spending eight months of his twelve-month sentence in custody. It is standard prison procedure to commute a third of any sentence for good behaviour. He told reporters he had been made to stand naked in front of prison guards and was then given a prison uniform covered with human excrement and lice when he arrived in jail. He denounced prison conditions generally in a press conference after his release, saying, "The inhumanity with which the prisoners are treated and their total lack of recourse to any representation or justice combined with the filth and stench of daily life is something I will never forget and I will not rest until their conditions are improved." Bennett was also scarred by the screams he would hear from other prisoners being beaten on the soles of their feet.
Bennett declared his desire to continue in politics, saying, "I am more determined than ever to continue to strive for a better Zimbabwe for all Zimbabweans, the current oppression cannot continue for much longer and sooner, rather than later, the people will assert their rights." He also said that if the opportunity arose and the people for Chimanimani asked him to, he would stand as their representative again.
Read more about this topic: Roy Bennett (politician)
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“The near touch of death may be a release into life; if only it will break the egoistic will, and release that other flow.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
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