Otto Saki advocates for human rights defenders facing harassment and arrest. Despite corrupt police and intimidated judges, he demands justice. When the regime demolished the homes of desperately poor people, Otto fought for the protection of thousands of victims.

Otto Saki crusades for justice in opposition to one of the world’s most notorious and deadliest regimes. Ever since he was a child, Otto refused to take anything at face value. So when Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, began using repressive tactics to retain control of the government, Otto, then a law student, felt compelled to respond.

Since Mugabe took power in 1980, his regime has become increasingly violent and oppressive, restricting freedom of association, assembly, and expression. At the same time, the quality of life in the country has plummeted. Zimbabwe now has the world’s highest inflation rate, and the government seizure of white-owned farms has led to dramatic declines in food production, causing more than three million people to face starvation. Eighty percent of all citizens are unemployed, and more than 20 percent are infected with HIV. Since 1988 life expectancy has dropped from 62 years to 38 years.

When riot police shot and killed a student during a university protest, Otto, then a law student, responded by calling for a boycott. During his six-month suspension from the university, he continued his activism by interning with human rights and labor organizations. After a court order allowed him to return to the university for exams, he was targeted as a threat. His family, frightened for his safety, asked him to stop his human rights work, but he persisted. He now works at the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, where he directs a project that supports human rights defenders who face harassment, intimidation, and arrest.

Since May 2005, the government has been waging a campaign against people living in shantytowns. This mass eviction and demolition campaign, called Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Away Filth), has demolished houses and settlements, causing numerous deaths and leaving an estimated one million people homeless. Despite threats from the police and the reluctance of intimidated judges, Otto has helped thousands of families apply to the High Court to prevent the demolitions and seek restitution. And when he discovered hundreds of the families abandoned in a rural area without food or water, he alerted the international humanitarian community.

“Another definition of murambatsvina is human waste,” Otto says, “so what we have is a government comparing its economically marginalized citizens to human waste.”

Despite such inhumanity, Otto adds, “I see Zimbabwe as a country with so much potential. That’s actually one of the reasons why I’ve stayed. I had many opportunities to leave the country permanently, but the hope I have for this country is that in the long run we will see a shift in what has been happening. In the long run what we’re doing now will prove vital, and sooner or later we’ll be able to live in a country where we’re free to express ourselves without fear. It’s only a matter of time.”