Officials of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions say the Harare government has continued to harass the labor organization following demonstrations and arrests last week in which 15 union and opposition officials were severely beaten.
Plainclothes police detained, searched and interrogated the union’s deputy secretary general, Japhet Moyo, Tuesday at Harare International Airport on his return from observing elections in Sweden, union sources said. They said police also detained union official Silas Kuvheya, also returning from abroad but on a different flight.
Meanwhile, ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo said he may be bleeding internally due to the beating he says he received at police hands last week. Union Secretary General Wellington Chibhebhe was still being treated at Avenues Clinic.
Moyo said the police who detained him at the airport accused him of slandering the government on his international travels, and before letting him go ordered him not to report the incident at the airport to anyone.
Moyo told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that leaders of the union are determined to press ahead in defense of worker rights.