HUMAN Rights Defenders (HRDs) Robson Chere of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union (ARTUZ), Namatai Kwekweza and opposition councillor Samuel Gwenzi have been arrested at the Robert Mugabe International Airport, reports indicate.
Chere, an unwavering voice for the betterment of teachers' working conditions and salaries, is the Secretary General of ARTUZ.
Kwekweza is a survivor of an alleged state-sponsored abduction and is a respected, young HRD.
Gwenzi is Harare City Council's Ward 5 councillor, having won the seat at last year's elections under a Citizens Coalition for Change ticket.
According to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), the three were removed from a plane they had already boarded.
The human rights organisation was still to ascertain where they had been taken by the time of publishing this article.
"We are greatly concerned about the whereabouts of pro-democracy campaigner Kwekweza and two other people, who reached out to us after they were removed from a plane at Robert Mugabe International Airport," said ZLHR.
"We are trying to ascertain their whereabouts and what is happening to them."
The three add to over 70 opposition activists who have been rounded up by the police and other state security actors ahead of August's SADC Summit.
"This comes as the regime attempts to silence voices ahead of the SADC summit," said former MP Ostallos Siziba.
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"Human rights activists, trade unionists, student leaders, and democratic opposition members are being targeted. The fight is on, it's homeland or death! #ZanuPFMustGo."
Most were rounded up on allegations of convening "unsanctioned meetings" with analysts arguing it is President Emmerson Mnangagwa's response to possible protests that could characterise the summit to be held in Harare.
State security agents are on high alert and under direct orders to pick up anyone suspected to be organising demonstrations, despite it being a constitutional right.
A one-year-old baby is currently living at Harare Central Remand Prison with its mother, one of those arrested at senior CCC member Jameson Timba's home on The Day of the African Child.
Over 70 opposition activists were rounded up based on fears they were planning to protest at the August summit. Petitions have dominated the internet to have the mother and baby released.
