Zimbabwe ? Pregnant women, mothers with babies strapped to their backs, girls who had been threatened with rape, men with broken bones – these were among the hundreds of people beaten and shoved into police vans during a police raid on Zimbabwe’s opposition headquarters Friday.

Security forces also ransacked the offices of independent election monitors, hauling away material documenting President Robert Mugabe’s apparent electoral defeat. The strikes sent a powerful message the country’s longtime leader intends to hold onto power despite a growing global clamor for him to step aside.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change and the independent Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network both maintain Tsvangirai won the March 29 presidential vote, based on their own surveys of tallies posted at ballot stations. Official results have yet to be released.

About 250 riot police wielding batons arrested about 300 people in the sweep on the opposition’s Harvest House offices in the capital, Harare.