Seeing a police station, which must be a sanctuary for the protection of the rights of citizens, being converted into a hell-hole was heart-wrenching.

Seeing police officers trash their constitutional duties in favour of brutalising innocent civilians trying to exercise their basic freedoms was equally devastating.

Yes, they brutalised my flesh. But they will never break my spirit. I will soldier on until Zimbabwe is free.

I had driven into Highfield suburb in the capital, Harare, on Sunday for a prayer meeting organised by local churches. Although Robert Mugabe had banned all opposition political party meetings and rallies, I had never anticipated that he could go as far as ruthlessly crushing a peaceful prayer meeting.

When I arrived in Highfield, en route to the venue called the Zimbabwe Grounds, I learnt that it had been completely sealed off to the public. Riot police were visible everywhere and blocking people from accessing the venue. Ironically it is in the Zimbabwe Grounds that Mugabe stood in 1980 to promise us unfettered freedoms before he assumed power.

Sensing danger and realising that the police officers had the upper hand as they, by far, outnumbered potential prayer participants, and knowing from past experiences that they would butcher peaceful citizens if we tried to defy them, I decided to withdraw. So it's ludicrous for the Mugabe regime to claim, as they do, that I started violence. I don't believe in violence. It's common knowledge that I face accusations of being a weak opposition leader because I have on many occasions restrained my supporters from being violent.

It is common knowledge that when Mugabe stole the 2002 presidential elections in broad daylight and was later condemned by all and sundry for that electoral theft, my supporters were more than ready to confront him in the streets and topple his regime. I restrained them because I don't believe in violence but peaceful protest.

I left the venue and withdrew to my home in Strathaven, at least 20km from Highfield. Before I could settle there, I was informed that all the senior officials of my party and other civic leaders who had wanted to continue with the prayer meeting had been arrested and were now jailed at Machipisa Police Station in Highfield.

I immediately drove back and, upon my arrival at Machipisa Police Station, all hell broke loose. I was pulled out of my car by heavily built men in police gear and they began smashing my head against the wall while pushing me inside the station.

My driver and other aides were treated in the same way. In fact, driver Simbarashe Mujeyi was forced to leave the car- engine running and thrown into the area where my comrades and I were being savagely beaten.

The orgy of heavy beatings continued once we were all inside the station. They were mostly targeting my head and my face. The assaults, punctuated with obscene verbal attacks on my person, my family, my party the MDC, and my supporters continued for a long time.

It was all like a bad dream. I momentarily recalled the incident in 1999 when a group of Mr Mugabe's supporters stormed my office when I still led the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and heavily assaulted me before trying to throw me out of the window of my 10th floor office. Then, I had survived after my secretary entered my office and screamed for help as I struggled to stop them.

At least then I was assaulted alone in my office until ZCTU staff rallied to rescue me. But I had never realised that Robert Mugabe and his criminal regime could go as far as they did on Sunday: humiliating me in this manner in front of my officials and many young supporters as if they had planned to make a lesson out of me and show our party activists that "if we can do this to your leader, then imagine what we can do unto you if you remain in the MDC". As they continued to whip me, my thoughts raced around in circles over the rampant abuse of our public institutions by a desperate regime keen to cling to power at all costs.

I felt like my head had been smashed open or I had been partially decapitated. I passed out three times, I was later told by eyewitnesses. I lost a lot of blood and was later injected with two pints. After passing out the last time, I can't remember many things. Later I found myself in a crowded, hot, filthy and cockroach-infested police cell. I was told I was at Borrowdale Police Station. The rest is now history.

As I lie on my bed recuperating, I grieve at how our national institutions, like the police force, have been criminalised by Mugabe and converted into an extension of his ruling party.

Where in the world, except in Zimbabwe today, can anyone expect to hear a police officer declare that he only takes orders from his seniors and does not recognise the law, does not respect court orders and does not care about life and property?

For many years, Zimbabweans were known for their respect for the police. One police officer in a remote area could literally lead a whole village to a police station 50 miles away on foot if the village needed immediate help. That respect and professionalism is now lost due to crass political opportunism. Serious mistrust between the police force and the public now rules.

It shall take our nation decades of retraining the police and a radical shift in mindset to rebuild that trust. My vision is to see the attainment of a new political dispensation in which people's freedoms are extended and respected, and our potential as individual citizens is unlocked for the benefit of Zimbabwe. I seek a comprehensive transformation of our society to restore democracy and the rule of law, to remedy the damage Mugabe has inflicted on our institutions, and a new Zimbabwe which will reassume its pride of place among civilised nations.

Democratic change in Zimbabwe is within sight. Far from killing my spirit, the scars they brutally inflicted on me have re-energised me. I seek no martyrdom. I only seek a new dispensation in my country in which citizens live freely in prosperity and not in fear of their rulers.

Of course we need the support of the world, and please do support us in achieving democratic change in Zimbabwe. I am thankful for the support we got from the international community during our ordeal. I am heartened by the messages of solidarity we got from all over the world. I am thankful to all the diplomats who attended our court appearances.

Let the pressure be maintained on the regime.

'Why is South Africa against regime change in Zimbabwe? Mandela's silence is deafening'

Kerry Kay, Zimbabwean Blogger

"The morning began with visiting the victims of the shooting at the mourning of the late Gift Tandere [the activist shot dead on Sunday]. The police sneaked up on the mourners at 3am, with their vehicle lights off, and then opened fire. When I arrived at the Hospital, Dickson was in theatre having an emergency operation and the doctors thought they would have to amputate his foot. Their crime is that they were mourning the senseless killing of their friend."

Cathy Buckle, Zimbabwean Author

"On Monday a friend priced a pair of work overalls and they were forty thousand dollars. On Wednesday, when he went with the cash to buy them, the price had gone up to seventy five thousand dollars. None of us are able to cope with these sort of price increases and so we go without. We put the little money we have back in our pockets, not really understanding that we must spend it when we have it as its buying power is shrinking every day."

Crybelovedzimbabwe.blogspot

"I am completely utterly sickened by the attitude of South Africa. I do not know why they are against regime change in Zimbabwe? The silence of Mandela is the most deafening. It's pointless to count [South Africa] as a friend."

"As a matter of fact, our whole foreign policy regarding countries in Africa should be reviewed once we get Zimbabwe back, because frankly we can never be bottom buddies with a country like South Africa which fails to condemn what is happening in Zimbabwe today! How quickly has the South African have forgotten how they begged the world to isolate the regime of PW Botha. If the world had slept on calls to force Pretoria to release Mandela from prison, where would Mbeki be now?"

Anonymous Medical Worker

"The methods of torture are beating all over the body with baton sticks, falanga (beating the feet), pulling their teeth so they become loose, tying hands and feet together and hanging them up like that while they beat them. As I receive many of [the victims] at a medical facility in the city, I see it with my own eyes and hear their stories first hand."

Anonymous activist who was beaten by the police

"The assaults on Sunday were so terrible and surreal. Like watching a movie except that one was part of the characters. Strangely if it were to happen again many of us would love to be in the front line again. They were hitting us but they were the ones afraid. Our wounds will heal but the scars on their souls are permanent and they will take them to hell."

Mugabemakaipa.blogspot

"Robert Mugabe was hailed as the liberator from the illegal white regime 30 years ago, but with the megalo-mania that seems to hit all dictators, he has gradually destroyed democracy, then rule of law, now the economy."