HARARE, June 8: A Zimbabwe court on Sunday freed an opposition lawmaker arrested twice in recent days, his lawyer said, as a doctors’ group reported nearly 3,000 victims of political violence ahead of this month’s presidential run-off.

Police re-arrested Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lawmaker Eric Matinenga on Saturday, two days after a court ordered his release after being held over the same case.

Authorities suspected him of paying opposition activists accused of attacking supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, but an MDC spokesman said after the second arrest that police were harassing him.

“The high court has ordered that he be released with immediate effect,” lawyer Innocent Chagonda said after Sunday’s ruling.

Matinenga was arrested the first time when he went to visit opposition MDC activists in his constituency who had been detained on suspicion of public violence.

The MDC has faced major difficulties in campaigning ahead of the June 27 vote and has only been able to stage a handful of rallies.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was detained twice last week, once for nearly nine hours before being released without charge.

Authorities also halted his campaign on Friday and barred the party from holding rallies in township areas of Harare, where the MDC draws much of its support. A court overturned the police ban on the rallies on Saturday.

The police action along with government moves to suspend all aid work in the country have added to signs of a crackdown ahead of the vote, with Tsvangirai seeking to topple Mugabe’s 28-year reign over the country.

Violence has mounted in the approach to the run-off as well, with the MDC claiming around 60 of its supporters have been killed by pro-Mugabe militias.

Mugabe blames the opposition for the increase in violence, but the United Nations’ chief representative in Zimbabwe has said the president’s supporters are to blame for the bulk of it.

A doctors’ association said on Sunday that 2,900 victims of political violence had been treated throughout Zimbabwe over the course of nearly two months, adding that some 200 among them had to be hospitalised.

“Sadly, a number have succumbed to these injuries,” Specialist Doctors in Zimbabwe said in a statement.

South African Anglican archbishop Thabo Makgoba said after returning from a pastoral visit to the country that “there is no doubt that Zimbabwe is a police state.” On a four-hour trip from Harare to Masvingo, we passed nine police roadblocks and were stopped at every one,” he said in a statement that called for “large numbers” of international and local election observers for the run-off.

The suspension on aid work has drawn international outrage, with charities warning the country could be facing a humanitarian crisis.—AFP