St Mary's Cathedral in Bulawayo is buzzing with tension before the Prayers for Peace service begins on Thursday.
Survivors of torture are going to speak at the service, which is being led by Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo. The archbishop has taken a firm stand against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, leading a protest at a cricket match.
He is a smallish man with a smiling face and he is joined in the sanctuary of the church by other Zimbabwean church leaders, and a delegation of South African clergy led by Archbishop Rubin Phillip of KwaZulu-Natal.
The dim, candle-lit interior of the church begins to fill - the congregation is made up of torture survivors, some of whom will speak, and members of the opposition.
Ncube begins by saying that the service is vital because the church has become the last open space for democracy in Zimbabwe.
"The people have been muzzled by the government, but they have the right to testify to what has happened to them," he says.
Phillip's greeting to the congregation is of "warmth and affection".
He says that "God did not decide to sort out a world gone astray from above, but by sending his own son into the world to suffer and redeem".
The archbishop says the South African delegation of churchmen are with the people of Zimbabwe to identify with their pain of their struggle against the regime and to protest against gross abuses of human rights.
He thanks God for those who are prepared to stand up and be counted on the side of good, and that the struggle is a peaceful one.
Peaceful it might be, but there is a moment of tension when Shari Eppel stands up to give a statement on behalf of survivors of "torture and organised violence".
"There are a number of members of the CIO - state security police - here. We have taken note of you and we know who you are. If you are here to pray you are welcome, if not we ask you to leave."
Nobody moves.
Members of the congregation light candles from flames held by the bishops and then place them on the altar. They are to commemorate those who have been the victims of torture and violence.
Later, wooden crosses will be brought up to the altar to mark the lives of those who have died.
It is time for the survivors to stand up and tell their stories. There are representatives from Harare, Bulawayo, Midlands, Matabeleland and Manicaland who speak.
One of those to speak is Deborah Moyo. She hands her baby to a man, who carries her to the back of the church, and Moyo ascends the stairs to the altar. In the flickering candlelight she is an impossibly thin figure, dressed in a navy skirt and sleeveless blouse.
She stands next to Ncube, who is going to translate for her, and begins to tell her story. It begins well, although the archbishop has to bend close to her as she speaks quietly.
Then suddenly she is falling; in what looks like slow-motion she pitches sideways off the pulpit and stumbles before running towards the door of the cathedral.
Eppel gets to her before she falls and she is hustled out of the cathedral through a side entrance.
There is a stunned silence among the congregation who minutes before had been expressing their solidarity with murmurs of outrage.
Another person who gives evidence of abuse and torture is Job Sikhala, Movement for Democratic Change member of parliament for St Mary's constituency. He was picked up by the security police and told that he was to be charged with trying to overthrow the government and planning an uprising against Mugabe. He denied these allegations and, after a number of days at Harare central police station, was booked out by a number of policemen, who took him to an unknown destination.
"They stripped me and beat me on my buttocks and feet, but I would not admit to the lies they were trying to force me to admit to. All the time I had a hood over my face. Then they attached electric gadgets to my second toes and shocked me.
"After that they shocked me on my private parts and then put electrodes between my teeth and under my tongue. At this stage I collapsed. One of my tormentors seemed to be drunk and urinated on me. I had also lost control of my bladder and they screamed at me and told me to roll around on the floor to clean up the urine. Then they made me lick it up."
Sikhala was then taken back to Harare Central and released.
After the service, buses begin to leave for various destinations. There is concern about getting those who have told their stories out of the cathedral and to safety.
Concern, especially, for Dorothy Moyo who has exposed the Zanu-PF training camps.
After the crowd has left the security branch move in to take away Archbishop Ncube. The other ministers and bishops, including Rubin Phillip, remain with him, offering some form of protection.
Eventually the security police give up and leave.
On Friday they are back waiting for Ncube and once again Archbishop Rubin Phillip and other churchmen go to wait with him.
This time, however, the standoff is reasonably brief. Ncube agrees to speak to the security police. He is warned that the church service the night before was too political to be a religious service.
Archbishop Phillip leaves for South Africa after giving a hasty interview to the SABC. And he leaves by air."I'm really worried about that young woman, Moyo," he says. At the time Moyo and her baby were safely out of harm's way. For how long is anyone's guess.
- An article on the nuances of the political situation in Zimbabwe by Zubeida Jaffer of the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation will appear in the Cape Times on Wednesday 05 March.