Mothers' Union meeting disbanded by Zimbabwe riot police

A prayerful meeting of over 3,000 Mothers' Union members in Harare was recently forcefully disrupted and halted by riot police.

On 19 April, at St Michael's Mbare, Harare, as the women met to pray and to meditate on the role of wives and mothers for "Lady Day", police arrived to accuse the membership of holding an unlawful meeting.

Despite Mothers' Union informing police in advance that the meeting would take place, the meeting was directly targeted by officials. Being a church meeting, it was exempt from the Public Order Security Act which currently curtains public gatherings.

Nevertheless officials ordered the police to break up the meeting. When lawyers intervened and said the break up was unlawful, police returned after an hour, dressed in full riot gear, and threatened physical violence if the meeting was not disbanded.

One police leader went back four times to the female police superintendent, Amai Sazdamari, to ask who he should beat up, because all he saw was a large gathering of people praying, and he was told "all of them". All the women who refused to leave were to be beaten - a of women, many elderly, meeting to pray and worship together to be inspired in their charitable outreach work to the poor and hungry within Zimbabwe.

Mothers' Union member, Ruth Bakare, wife of the Bishop of Harare was delivering her keynote address on "You are my witnesses says the Lord", from Isaiah (43), at the time the riot police burst in. She wrote "Just as I said in my address: 'What have we not witnessed in today's Zimbabwe?', the second truckload of police arrived, and a policeman came to the front of the tent where I was and requested us to leave immediately.

"The women started saying a last prayer, and many were shedding tears. Then they began to disperse one by one, with some older ladies on walking sticks trotting behind. They called to me 'Musatye' ('don't be afraid'), and indeed I was not, carried by so much joy and love and hope. I knew that what we are going through is only for a while. We shall overcome!"

Despite being personally affected, Mothers' Union members in Zimbabwe have continued in care programmes for orphaned children and vulnerable elderly people in their communities, feeding, clothing and paying school fees for 2,000 orphans in 2007.