From a report in today's New York Times:
Dozens of students, trade unionists and political activists who gathered to watch Al Jazeera and BBC news reports on the uprisings that brought down autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt have been arrested on suspicion of plotting to oust President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
James Sabau, a spokesman for the police force, which is part of the security services controlled by Mr. Mugabe's party, was quoted in Monday's state-controlled newspaper as saying that the 46 people in custody were accused of participating in an illegal political meeting where they watched videos "as a way of motivating them to subvert a constitutionally elected government."
.....
"The illegal meeting's agenda, Inspector Sabau said, was 'Revolt in Egypt and Tunisia: What lessons can be learnt by Zimbabwe and Africa?'" the state-controlled Herald reported.
Inspector Sabau found the topic incriminating, but many Zimbabweans have been asking themselves that very question as democratic revolutions have swept Arab nations. Like former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Mr. Mugabe is an octogenarian autocrat in power for three decades. And also like Mr. Mubarak, he has used the state security services to harass, jail and torture his opponents.
This news is doubly heartening. It shows that Zimbabweans are watching what has been happening across the Arab world. More generally, it shows up for the claptrap it has always been the contention that freedom and democracy may not be suitable notions for faraway lands. To the contrary, one oppressed people only has to get an inkling of the successes of another oppressed people in throwing off dictatorial rule for it to think, 'So why not us?'
Together with these points, of course, there is the kind of cruel joke that every tyranny generates in quantity. Here it is the Zimbabwean police as defenders of constitutionality.