The leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party needed hospital treatment for severe head injuries after police beat him following his arrest at a prayer rally on Sunday, his party said.

Morgan Tsvangirai required surgery to his wounds at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare early yesterday, said an official from his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The MDC leader was arrested in the impoverished township of Highfields where he had gone to attend a prayer rally. Dozens of opposition officials, rights activists and churchmen were also detained.

Eliphas Mukonoweshuro, a party spokesman, said that Mr Tsvangirai’s wife, Susan, had been allowed to take her husband food yesterday after he was returned to police cells.

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Mrs Tsvangirai was traumatised by the sight of her husband’s injuries, Professor Mukonoweshuro said. “It was fortunate that she went to see him with other party members and not with her children.”

The former trade unionist had a “very deep wound” to his head, Professor Mukonoweshuro said. “He can hardly eat and hardly talk. In fact it was an attempted murder.” Mr Tsvangirai had fainted three times while police were beating him, he said.

Police seized the opposition leaders as they tried to negotiate for permission to hold a prayer rally in Highfields. All political meetings have been banned in and around the capital as threats to President Mugabe’s 27-year hold on power mount.

The Opposition blames Mr Mugabe for plunging this once-prosperous and peaceful country into a rapidly worsening economic and political crisis. The ageing ruler further angered opponents this week when it emerged he was seeking to postpone the end of his Presidential term from next year to 2010.

The Save Zimbabwe Campaign, which called Sunday’s rally, had hoped to circumvent the ban by scheduling prayers after every speaker. Police said that they had arrested the opposition leader and his colleagues because they were “inciting people to engage in violent activities”.

Other opposition officials detained on Sunday were also reported to have been severely assaulted. Lovemore Madhuku, the chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, had his hand broken and was also taken for hospital treatment.

There were fears for the safety of Nelson Chamisa, the MDC spokesman, and Mike Davies, the chairman of the Combined Harare Residents’ Association. They were reported to have been transferred to a police torture centre in Goromonzi, 20 miles from Harare.

There was no information on the whereabouts of a second opposition leader, Arthur Mutambara, who was arrested with Mr Tsvangirai. Mr Mutambara heads a faction of the MDC that broke away from Mr Tsvangirai in late 2005 after an argument over whether the party should participate in polls for a new senate.

Tensions were high in central Harare yesterday. Armed riot police patrolled the main shopping area, apparently fearing unrest.

Violence erupted in Highfields late on Sunday, rippling through at least two other suburbs. Police shot one man dead. Police said that he was part of a gang that had stoned a shopping centre patrol. He has been named as Gift Tandare, a married father of three.

Three police officers were also reported injured after they were overpowered by youths who stoned and kicked them. Police said that the youths had used children as shields.

A pregnant woman was reported to have miscarried after youths attacked a bus ferrying mourners home from a funeral at Granville Cemetery. The youths stopped the bus and frisked the passengers, stealing their mobile phones, the state-owned Herald said.

Tempers have reached boiling point among Zimbabwe’s urban working class, inflamed by a cocktail of soaring prices, shortages of basics such as cooking oil and the staple mealie-meal, and increasing state repression. Unemployment is running at more than 70 per cent, leaving a generation of educated twentysome-things frustrated and angry.

— 12 independent political parties that have ceased to contest elections in Zimbabwe since 2000

Source: EISA.org.za

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