HARARE, Zimbabwe — Police said Thursday they would use special powers to crack down on rising political violence by restricting the movement of party supporters and banning some meetings.
A human rights lawyer condemned the decision as draconian.
"We will maintain law and order," Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri told a news conference in Harare.
"Abductions have to stop. Assaults have to stop. Intimidation has to stop, and we are going to see to it that it stops," he said before meeting officials from the main parties.
Police had invoked three sections of the Law and Order Maintenance Act giving them power to restrict the movement of party supporters and ban public gatherings that threatened law and order, he explained.
"In short, it is illegal to ferry supporters to meetings, public gatherings or processions unless such events are being officiated by presidents of political parties," Chihuri said.
He urged the country's judiciary to "deal severely with perpetrators of public violence."
At least 14 people — farmers, farm workers and opposition supporters — have been killed in nine weeks of rising tension ahead of parliamentary elections due by August. Militant supporters of President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF have invaded hundreds of white-owned farms.
Chihuri said ZANU-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were equally to blame for violence that has left at least seven supporters dead recently.
On Tuesday, police arrested five men in connection with the beating to death of one MDC activist. The party poses a major threat to the ruling party in the parliamentary vote.
"We are not biased in the way we look at the issue. Both parties have killed people," Chihuri said, adding that police had recorded 194 acts of political violence since January.
"We are calling on all political parties to desist from these acts of violence."
In London, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook met Zimbabwean leaders to press for an end to the farm invasions in its former colony.