The ZANU PF game on the issue of political detainees continued on Wednesday.

Three activists, including Zimbabwe Peace Project Director, Jestina Mukoko, have been at the Avenues Clinic since last Friday and a further two were hospitalised on Monday. But on Wednesday the High Court and the Magistrates court postponed hearings on some of the activists mainly because a police report on torture allegations was not brought to the courts on time.

Lawyer Charles Kwaramba said Zacharia Nkomo and Chiroto Zulu had to be taken to hospital by prison officials when their condition deteriorated in jail. They join Mukoko, MDC activists Ghandi Mudzingwa and 72 year old Fidelis Chiramba, who are under armed guard by prison officers at the hospital.

Several other civic and political activists are still incarcerated at the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison. They are all accused of charges relating to a plot to overthrow the Mugabe regime.

One of the groups arrested, which includes Mudzingwa, Nkomo and Zulu, had two court hearings on Wednesday - one in the High Court for a bail application and then a remand hearing at the Magistrates' court. The three did not appear because they are in hospital but four others in the group did. They were Chris Dhlamini, Mapfumo Garutsa, Regis Mujeyi and freelance photojournalist Anderson Shadreck Manyere.

The last time they appeared in court the Magistrate had requested a report from the police on their torture complaints. But on Wednesday the report was not made available at the time of the hearing, so the Magistrate postponed the matter to Friday. Their lawyers said this also affected their bail application hearing in the High Court, which led to the matter being deferred to Thursday.

Their lawyer said the police did finally make the report available, but only after the court appearances. Not surprisingly the report exonerated the police of any wrongdoing. Kwaramba said this shows how wrong the Zimbabwe criminal justice system is "because these police are the same perpetrators of the torture but what the court is basically doing is that it is ordering the same people to investigate themselves and expect them to bring a credible report to court. It doesn't make sense at all."

The human rights lawyer said a parliamentary committee should have been set up to investigate the allegations. The inclusive government did set up a Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) to look into complaints and violations of the global political agreement. But Kwaramba said lawyers have not been given an opportunity to make presentations. "It is a preserve of politicians unfortunately," he said.

Meanwhile, the pressure group the Restoration of Human Rights Zimbabwe (ROHR) held a peaceful demonstration in Harare on Wednesday, protesting against the continued detention of the prisoners of conscience at Chikurubi and other places of detention. ROHR Information Director Edgar Chikuvire said police came soon after the demonstration at the Rotten Row courts, and the group was still trying to investigate if anyone was arrested.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions sent out a solidarity message on Wednesday on behalf of the political detainees, saying: "Their arrest and detention prove that Robert Mugabe is doing everything he can to destroy the Government of National Unity. It demonstrates the correctness of the joint COSATU/ZCTU statement of 29 January 2009 which pointed out then that "the police are still under the control of ZANU-PF, abducting, detaining and torturing political opponents of the ruling elite."

"As the federations warned, the GNU will never work while one party - ZANU-PF - has sole control over the police and judiciary, and uses that control to frustrate the whole GNU project and retain power in the hands of the party who lost the elections on 29 March 2009."