Police attack PTUZ teachers' union

Teachers union leaders hospitalised after police assault
Nehanda Radio 20/2/2008
HARARE – Nine Zimbabwe teachers’ union leaders were on Tuesday hospitalised after they were severely assaulted and tortured by militant supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party. The ZANU PF supporters abducted Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) secretary general Raymond Majongwe and his colleagues as they distributed flyers on the streets of Harare denouncing the collapsed state of education ... They were taken to the party’s Harare provincial headquarters on the east of the capital’s central business district where they were severely assaulted, incurring serious injuries, according to their lawyer Tafadzwa Mugabe ... “All the nine are hospitalised in Avenues Clinic (a private hospital in Harare) under police guard,” Mugabe said. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was unaware of the incident and unable to comment. The beating and torture of the union leaders comes as political pressure group, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC), warned on Tuesday that a repressive environment marked by intimidation and organised violence had effectively reduced next month’s elections to an exercise to simply validate Mugabe’s controversial rule ...