The four are George Makoni, 38, advocacy officer for the NGO Centre for Community Development Zimbabwe; Tatenda Mombeyarara, 37, coordinator for lobby group Citizens Manifesto; Gamuchirai Mukura, 31, executive director of Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development (COTRAD); and Nyasha Mpahlo, 35, governance officer at Transparency International Zimbabwe.
The arrest of the human rights activists follows a report carried in State daily publications, The Herald and Chronicle that suggested that civic organisations are plotting to cause mayhem in the country. The Herald ran a story claiming that “a group of shady organisations with links to the (main opposition) MDC-Alliance has been hard at work laying the groundwork for civil unrest to be unleashed next month.” The newspaper said some activists had attended a workshop on the Maldives archipelago that was conducted by a non-profit Serbian organisation, Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS).
The civil society alliance Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition condemned the latest arrests. It said in a statement: “The police, government and state media have been colluding to criminalise the work of human rights defenders, laying unfounded allegations against civil society leaders as agents of regime change who want to topple the government.”
On 27 May 2019 ZW News adds that two more human rights defenders were arrested: https://zwnews.com/human-rights-arrested-at-harare-international-airport/
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
June 11, 2019 at 10:15
[…] and that of the seven human rights defenders arrested in Zimbabwe [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/05/21/four-zimbabwe-human-rights-defenders-detained-at-at-the…], I am now happy to report some […]
August 26, 2019 at 10:28
[…] Amnesty International said it has documented at least 15 killings by police when nationwide protests erupted mid-January this year and last week, 128 protesters were reportedly arrested with 400 having been convicted in the disturbances that rocked the country early this year. To date, the human rights organisation said 22 people including Evan Mawarire, a well-known local cleric and activist, and trade union leader Peter Mutasa – still face trumped-up subversion charges in connection with the protests. Some of the activists and human rights defenders were arrested at Robert Mugabe International Airport in May as they returned from a capacity-building workshop on non-violent protest tactics in the Maldives [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/05/21/four-zimbabwe-human-rights-defenders-detained-at-at-the… […]