ZAMBIAN police have detained some 50 junior medical doctors for trying to stage an anti-government march. The protestors, among 300 doctors sacked in January for striking over conditions in government hospitals, were arrested when they tried to start a march in defiance of a police order. Jonathan Tembo, leader of the doctors, told journalists by mobile telephone that police had followed the Lusaka-based government doctors to the rallying point for the protest and had arrested and brought all those present to a police station in the capital. “We are currently in detention and we don’t know what the police are planning to do with us,” Tembo said. A police spokesman said the doctors had been charged with “unlawful assembly” and would appear in court soon. Some 300 junior doctors went on strike in December, demanding better working conditions and provision of drugs and surgical equipment in government hospitals. The government sacked the strikers in January.