HARARE – A group of Zimbabwean activists accused of plotting north African-style anti-government protests were on Wednesday charged with treason and face a possible death sentence if convicted.

The 46 activists were arrested in Harare last weekend allegedly as they watched videos of protests that toppled Tunisia’s President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and discussed how to stage similar mass action in Zimbabwe.

State prosecutor Edmore Nyazamba told a packed court yesterday that the activists, who include a former member and legislator of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party Munyaradzi Gwisai, student leaders and trade unionists, were plotting to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means.

“The 46 are charged with treason. On 16 February they held a meeting and the purpose of the meeting was to organise, strategise and implement the removal of a constitutional government of Zimbabwe by unconstitutional means, the Tunisian-Egyptian way,” Nyazamba said.

“In their speeches the accused highlighted that there was a long serving dictator/authoritarian leader, general hunger, poverty, unemployment and capitalist tendencies where wealth is enjoyed by a few individuals while the general populace is suffering,” he added.

Defence lawyer Alec Muchadehama said the activists will deny the charge and would today return to court to apply for bail.

The defence and the activists’ supporters in civil society maintain that the accused were having an academic discussion on the protests in north Africa when the police pounced on them.

US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said on Tuesday that the arrest of the activists for reviewing the events in north Africa and their implications on Zimbabwe showed Mugabe has learnt nothing from the toppling of Ben Ali and Mubarak.

"Activists meet in Zimbabwe to discuss the implications of Egypt and Tunisia and end up arrested. Mugabe did not learn the right lessons," Crowley twitted on Tuesday.

Many observers have sought to draw parallels between mass discontent in Tunisia and Egypt just before the revolts against Ben Ali and Mubarak with the situation in Zimbabwe where dissatisfaction with Mugabe -- who has ruled the country for the last three decades  -- is huge.

But analysts in Harare say any attempts to stage Tunisia or Egypt-style mass action in Zimbabwe would be premature, warning that repressive legislation and fanatically pro-Mugabe security forces would ensure such an uprising was violently crushed

By Staff reporter and agencies