Hundreds of Zimbabweans arrested during anti-government protests were detained on Friday on public order charges.
This even as the United Nations urged an end to a brutal security crackdown and an internet blackout.
The Zimbabwean government has said three people died during the unrest that broke out on Monday after President Emmerson Mnangagwa raised fuel prices by 150 percent.
However, lawyers and activists say the toll is much higher and that security forces used violence and carried out mass arrests to quell the unrest.
The internet was blacked out for much of the day, until authorities began gradually lifting a ban that had disabled some electronic communications in the country since Tuesday.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for restraint by the Zimbabwe authorities.
“We are worried with the deterioration of the situation caused by the potential use of excessive violence in confronting the demonstrations in Zimbabwe,” Guterres told a news conference in New York.
In Geneva, The U.N. human rights office called on the government to halt the crackdown and denounced allegations of “generalised intimidation and harassment” of protesters.
Referring to allegations of night-time door-to-door searches against demonstrators and beatings by police, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said hospital medics had treated more than 60 people for gunshot wounds.
“This is not way to react to the expression of economic grievances by the population,” she said.
Civilians over the weekend ventured outside to stock up on food and other supplies while police continued to patrol the streets, as life returned to a semblance of normality in Harare,
While long queues formed at petrol stations and outside shops, the internet shutdown meant that Harare banks were providing only partial services and no cash machines were working, according to a Reuters witness.
Leading mobile operator Econet Wireless said it had received an instruction from the government to reopen internet access, except for some social media applications.
