20120104
AFP
Zimbabwe police blocked an annual retreat of Anglican priests, invoking a security law that bars public gatherings without official clearance, a church spokesman said Tuesday.

Precious Shumba said 80 church leaders, including the bishop of Harare, were stopped from holding their retreat at a school about 75 kilometres (45 miles) east of the capital.

"The police claimed the Anglicans had not sought police clearance to gather for prayer as required in terms of the Public Order and Security Act," Shumba said in a statement.

"This is calculated harassment by some of the police officers and we deplore this action and call upon higher authorities to intervene. So much for freedom of religion."

Harare Bishop Chad Gandiya said he went to the police headquarters to complain, but was ordered to vacate the school where the gathering was to take place.

Police arrived at Peterhouse High School, outside the town of Marondera, early on Tuesday to force the clergy to leave, the statement said.

The Anglican Church has been riven by division since bishop Nolbert Kunonga broke away from the Anglican Communion in 2007 in a dispute about homosexuality. He formed his own breakaway church, seizing Anglican property and forcefully evicted Anglicans from their places of worship.

Peterhouse is not an Anglican school, but had agreed to host the annual retreat.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide, visited Zimbabwe in October to show solidarity with his flock.

He presented President Robert Mugabe with a dossier saying one person had been killed and many others wounded in attacks on Anglicans in Zimbabwe.