Wellington Chibebe, General Secretary of Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), and Lovemore Matombo, President, have both been detained at the Harare Central Police Station in connection with the speeches made by them on May Day. They have been charged with inciting people to rise against the government and spreading falsehoods about the current political crisis in your country. Heavily armed policevisited their homeslooking for them. They currently remain in detention.

This latest development comes amidst a recent scaling up of post election violence against trade unionists and ordinary civilians. For instance, teachers, who served as supervisors at polling stations, have been systematically singled out, with 496 questioned, 133 assaulted and 123 charged with election fraud, according to the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe.

Takavafira Zhou, President of the teachers’ union, said he believed that teachers were being singled out for their role in supervising the elections. Teachers gave harrowing accounts of their ordeals, most begging that their names not be used. "I’ll be hunted and killed," said a school teacher from the rural Guruve District in Mashonaland Central Province in a New York Times report. He and five other teachers were hauled from their homes on April 26 by about 30 members of the ruling party’s youth militia, who beat them with iron bars, bicycle chains and thick tree branches. All are now in hiding.