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Zimbabwe police bar national prayer rally
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
March 11, 2007

At least 110 political and civic activists were arrested by Zimbabwean police this morning following plans to hold a prayer rally organized by the Christian Alliance under the banner of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign. The arrested include Prof. Arther Mutambara, leader of the Pro-senate faction of the Movement Change (MDC), Tendai Biti, Secretary General of the Anti - Senate faction, Lovemore Madhuku, Chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly and Mike Davies, Chairperson of the Combined Harare Residents Association. Save Zimbabwe Campaign is a platform for pro-democracy activities sharing the same aspiration of seeing a democratic Zimbabwe and is coordinated by an umbrella of church bodies the Christian Alliance. It includes both formations of the MDC and other progressive civil society organizations.

The Save Zimbabwe Campaign prayer rally was scheduled to start at 10:00am at Zimbabwe Open Grounds in the politically volatile Highfields suburb of Harare. Police arrived at the venue earlier this morning and barricaded it, also cordoning all roads leading to that venue. They started dispersing people who were seen in groups of three and more as early as 8:00am. As the church leaders led the delegation of opposition party and civil society leadership, police picked them up in their vehicles and detained them at the Southerton and Machipisa police stations pending transfer to the Harare Central Police Station's Law and Order section.

By the time of going to press, no charges had been officially laid against the arrested activists and lawyers were frantically trying to gain access to their clients but were denied by the authorities. At the scheduled venue of the rally, running battles are still continuing between police and citizens who were provoked by the disruption of the rally and the unwarranted arrests of their leaders.

Zimbabwean police banned all rallies nationally early this month following the MDC's intention to launch their official campaign for the 2008 Presidential elections in defiance to the ruling party's intention to unconstitutionally delay the elections to 2010.

Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a locally represented Zimbabwean civil society organization supports all initiatives profiling legitimate expressions by the people on how they should be governed. It deplores the continuing state's heavy handedness to suppress such progressive activities.

Visit the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition fact sheet

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