Z imbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was today arrested by armed police and troops. He and other activists and administrative staff were removed at gunpoint from their party HQ in Harare.
Earlier Tsvangirai and colleagues in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had gathered at the party offices in Nelson Mandela Street for a press conference. It is understood the arrests followed a government order banning MDC members from talking to the media.
The army moved in to seal off the street, trapping Tsvangirai in the building. Eye-witnesses said the soldiers also attacked passers-by.
Tsvangirai's arrest follows the abduction yesterday of another MDC activist, Last Maengahama, who was found dumped on farmland 40 miles outside Harare, having been beaten up by Mugabe's secret police. |
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The MDC leader’s detention follows the brutal beating of another party activist |
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The abduction occurred soon after Maengahama, the party's deputy secretary for local government, had left a memorial service for the young MDC activist, Gift Tandare, who was killed on March 11 when police broke up a prayer rally in Harare's Highfield township.
Eyewitnesses said that Maengahama was forced out of his vehicle at gunpoint at the Borrowdale shopping centre yesterday by a group of men in plain clothes, who then drove him away in an unmarked car.
More than 500 people attended the service for Tandare, to the anger of the Mugabe regime which had done its utmost to stop any public mourning for Tandare - including stealing his body from a Harare funeral parlour on March 17 and organising an immediate burial at Mt Darwin, which many relatives and friends were unable to attend. 
FIRST POSTED MARCH 28, 2007
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