So much for that anti-regime rally…
Robert Mugabe arrests his opposition before their planned rally.
Opposition activists suspected of being on their way to an anti-goverment rally at Highfields in Harare are arrested by Zimbabwean police. Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested as riot police thwarted a planned mass demonstration in Harare against President Robert Mugabe’s government.(AFP/Desmond Kwande)
Government officials arrested opposition party members today before they were able to hold their planned demonstration against the Robert Mugabe regime.
AFP reported:
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested on Sunday as riot police thwarted a planned mass demonstration in Harare against President Robert Mugabe’s government.
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change party, was one of dozens of MDC officials and activists detained in the Highfields area of Harare after they tried to defy a ban on protests in the capital.
And as the opposition stepped up its campaign to topple the 83-year-old Mugabe, the beleaguered president revealed his ambitions for another term of office.
A spokesman for the MDC said that Tsvangirai was detained in a shopping mall near the venue of the planned demonstration as he attempted to visit a police station where some of his colleagues were being held.
“The MDC president, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, was arrested this afternoon at Machipisa shopping centre together with his aides,” the spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka told AFP.
** Zimbabwe’s inflation rate may have jumped above 2000% in February!
Zimbabwean police sit in a car before arresting opposition activists suspected of being on their way to an antigoverment rally in Harare. (AFP)
Meanwhile, another Zimbabwean newspaper closed its doors today after its employees had gone without pay since the start of the year.
