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MDC calls for the release of weekend detainees
Movement for Democratic Change
April 12, 2011
The MDC calls
for an unconditional and immediate release of four pastors and 13
churchgoers currently in custody after their arrest
at the weekend while commemorating the tragic events of 11 March
2007 at a prayer meeting in Glen Norah.
The party is
further disheartened by the fact that Shakespeare Mukoyi, an MDC
activist, and several others including one of the four pastors,
who is in police custody together with Pastor Mukome, the Resident
Priest at the Nazarene Church, Pastor Isaya were assaulted by the
police. Reports indicate that they are being denied medical attention
despite their injuries.
The 13 were
arrested on Satruday and charged with committing the crime of 'public
violence'. But witnesses who attended the disrupted church
service charge the police fired teargas inside the church building
as a way to disperse them after the police initially blocked the
entrance to St Peters Kubatana Centre in Highfield, Harare.
Police later stormed a church hall in Glen Norah during prayer,
and chased away the congregants, which included many church, civic
and community leaders.
The police went
on to indiscriminately fire tear gas canisters at residences and
churches surrounding the venue of the church service.
Even children
who were within and outside the parameters of the church were affected
by the tear smoke and the police clampdown.The
church service was organised by a coalition of churches under the
theme "Saving Zimbabwe . . . .the unfinished journey".
It was essentially an opportunity to pray for peace in Zimbabwe
and to help save the country.
During the 11
March 2007 Save
Zimbabwe Prayer Meeting, where one activist Gift Tandare was
shot dead while
over 100 political and human rights activists, including President
Tsvangirai, were arrested, tortured and detained through similar
heavy-handed police action.
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