Fisher Murambatsvina, a 28-year-old MDC activist, said it was risky for Tsvangirai to return.

Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader, has survived three assassination attempts, including a 1997 attempt by unidentified assailants to throw him from a 10th floor window. Last year, he was hospitalized after a brutal assault by police at a prayer rally, and images seen around the world of his bruised and swollen face have come to symbolize the challenge dissenters face in his homeland.

“They beat him up before and this may happen again, just to break him down,” Murambatsvina said Saturday in Harare. “It’s risky for Morgan Tsvangirai to come back. The army is in charge. Right now, I don’t think he will be safe if he is coming to start his campaign.”

Mugabe, 84, has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 and once was hailed for promoting racial reconciliation and bringing education and health care to the black majority. But in recent years he has been accused of holding onto power through elections that independent observers say were marred by fraud, intimidation and rigging, and of overseeing his country’s economic collapse.

“Mugabe was once my hero, too,” Tsvangirai said Saturday. “It is very, very sad for me to call Mugabe a former liberator. It is sad for me to say that he has turned his back on both his people and his continent.”

Meanwhile, a Zimbabwean human rights lawyer and the editor of an independent newspaper who were arrested earlier this week have been released, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Saturday.

Harrison Nkomo and Davison Maruziva, editor of the Standard newspaper, were released on Friday, the New York-based organization said.

Maruziva was arrested Thursday and charged with publishing “false statements prejudicial to the state” and contempt of court.

Nkomo was arrested Wednesday and faces charges of “undermining the authority of or insulting the president,” the organization said.

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