Four Zimbabwean opposition leaders were prevented from leaving the country today.  One was assaulted at Harare International Airport by unidentified individuals wielding iron bars.

MP Nelson Chamisa said he was beaten as he tried to leave [Zimbabwe]. The government denied its forces were involved.

Earlier two women activists were stopped as they tried to leave to get treatment for injuries sustained in police custody, their lawyer said.

And Arthur Mutambara was re-arrested as he was about to leave the country.

Mr Chamisa had been set to travel to Belgium for an Africa Caribbean Pacific-EU meeting.  He has now been admitted to hospital with a fractured skull.

Only last Sunday, he was one of several arrested at a Save Zimbabwe Campaign prayer rally.  Today’s Observer carries a graphic report of the tortures inflicted on him and others while in police custody.

Some observers believe that decades of international inaction have emboldened Robert Mugabe to escalate his savage crackdown on political opponents and dissidents.

The universal condemnation of the police assault on Zimbabwean opposition leaders on March 11 is unlikely to move President Robert Mugabe. Ordinary Zimbabwean interviewed by IWPR say their president has got away with this kind of thing for decades, and the international community has done little more than issue protests from a safe distance.

Fifty opposition leaders on their way to attend a prayer meeting at Zimbabwe Grounds in the working class suburb of Highfield, Harare, were arrested and then savagely assaulted in police cells on March 11.

The images of a badly beaten Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, that flashed round the globe this week may have jolted the international community from its slumber.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Tsvangirai was in intensive care after sustaining serious head injuries from a police beating. Other prominent opposition figures also suffered serious injuries.
. . .
Yet the new international outcry seems unlikely to alarm President Mugabe, given that he has not been swayed by similar criticism of his past actions over the last 27 years.

It is believed that today’s actions are intended to prevent opposition figures from speaking directly to foreign media about recent atrocities committed by government forces.  Such testimonies would generate further negative publicity at a time when Mugabe’s support within his own ZANU-PF party is slipping.

Photos of Nelson Chamisa showing the injuries he suffered today are posted at This Is Zimbabwe.  Scroll down the page for more photos and video clips of recent violence in Zimbabwe.

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