Zimbabwe police arrest 19 in anti-government protest

HARARE - Zimbabwe police on Wednesday arrested 19 people, including two journalists, during a protest against a government-appointed commission that has run the capital since 2003, a lawyer for the protesters said.

Riot police swooped on about 200 members of the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) as they tried to march to the offices of the commission, which was empowered two years ago after President Robert Mugabe's government fired the opposition mayor on charges of misconduct.

"I have been able to ascertain that 19 people, including two journalists who were covering the protest, are in police cells. They have not been charged but I expect they will spend the night in jail," said lawyer Sarah Chishiri.

Police were not immediately available for comment. The force has in recent years cracked down on a series of anti-government protests, which have occurred amid a political and economic downturn that many blame on Mugabe.

Journalists have also been arrested while trying to cover the demonstrations.

In a statement, CHRA said the protestors wanted to voice anger over steep increases in rates and water charges as well as deteriorating service delivery, including failure to collect refuse and repair sewer pipe bursts, roads and street lights.

"(We) unequivocally demand ... the immediate reversal of the re-appointment of the Harare City Commission (and) the immediate holding of council and mayoral elections in the City of Harare," it said.

Mugabe's government, in power since independence in 1980, fired the Harare mayor, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), three years ago on charges of inefficiency, mismanagement and corruption.

The MDC has dismissed those charges as baseless.

Mugabe has denounced the MDC as a puppet of former colonial ruler Britain and other Western countries he accuses of sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy as payback for his forcible redistribution of white-owned commercial farms to blacks.

- REUTERS