Members of the Southern African People’s Solidarity Network who were refused entry to Zambia Tuesday evening and detained by Zimbabwean police in Chirundu were police released Wednesday with no charges pressed, one detainee said.
The activists were denied entry to Zambia after border authorities who found T-shirts with "Save Zimbabwe" slogans concluded they planned to demonstrate at the summit of the Southern African Development Community that opened on Thursday.
The 40 activists were then taken to Chirundu Police Station where police confiscated their T-shirts and questioned them, sources in the organization said.
Andy Ziyera, one of those detained, told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that police accompanied their bus for more than 200 kilometers to Chinhoyi to make sure they didn’t make another attempt to cross into Zambia.