Zimbabwe police attack prayer meeting
Zimbabwean police brandishing riot sticks broke up an opposition-organised prayer meeting, scattering hundreds of people, most of them women, in a main Harare shopping precinct.
The “prayer for action” meeting was the second of daily street services called by the Movement for Democratic Change ahead of anti-government demonstrations planned next week.
Several hundred women, some with babies strapped on their backs, gathered in the mall and waved open hands, an opposition salute symbolising its campaign for democratic reform, as they sang and chanted prayers.
Police charged the gathering. Onlookers jeered as police beat with riot sticks an unidentified man dragged from the crowd. Three women leaders of the gathering were arrested.
People fled as protesters hurled objects at a police truck speeding through the mall.
Witnesses said police also broke up a meeting of striking workers and engineers of the state power utility.
Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980 with record inflation of 269% and acute shortages of hard currency, petrol, medicines and other essential imports and food.
