Ten members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were arrested on Wednesday after staging a sit-in protest at the Zimbabwean embassy in London, the Metropolitan Police said.
”There have been a total of 10 arrests for trespass on a diplomatic premises: seven men and three women,” a spokesman said.
Regular police and officers from the Metropolitan Police’s diplomatic protection team were called to the embassy on the Strand, near Trafalgar Square in central London, at about 9am local time after the 10 got inside the building.
An MDC-United Kingdom spokesman, Ephraim Tapa, told Agence France-Presse the protest was part of a regular series of demonstrations and vigils outside the embassy at President Robert Mugabe’s repression of opposition in Zimbabwe.
”What we’re saying is that Mugabe appears to be intransigent. He’s defiant to the international community; he doesn’t seem to be listening to anybody, he continues to brutalise people in Zimbabwe.
”We’re saying that if we don’t take action now, the abuse of people is going to escalate as we move towards the 2008 elections.
”We’re protesting against that repression by Mugabe and trying to raise awareness, to try to keep the flame burning.” — AFP
