Author Tsitsi Dangarembga was found guilty on Thursday: the court in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, sentenced him to six months in prison, suspended for five years. The reason: Dangarembga had “incited public violence” by carrying a poster. Zimbabwean writer which was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade last year, had peacefully marched along Borrowdale Road in Harare with her friend Julie Barnes on 31 July 2020. Their poster read: “We want better. Reform our institutions”. So the call to reform the institutions to guarantee a better life for the citizens of Zimbabwe. A second poster called for the release of those who had exposed government and media corruption.
“Our hearts,” Dangarembga said immediately after the verdict was announced, “because this verdict could set a precedent for a person in Zimbabwe no longer having the freedom to walk down a street to show peaceful messages expressing their opinions disclosed on issues affecting them as citizens of Zimbabwe.” Both Zimbabwe’s citizens and the media see their space for public expression of opinion shrinking. Anyone who dares to criticize has long been in danger of being criminalized. Or sitting in prison for years without a trial – like the opposition politician Job Sikhala, who has already been in custody longer than the prison sentence for his alleged crime would be.
The president’s new special courts were supposed to fight corruption, now they convict critics of the regime
When Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa took power in 2017, the people of the country were hoping for reforms after decades of repression by Robert Mugabe’s regime. But little changed. On the contrary: Mnangagwa set up special courts that report to him personally. Supposedly they should serve to fight corruption, but now – as in the case of Dangarembga and Barnes – they are increasingly concerned with regime critics.
“Because the regime doesn’t manage to control the social media across the board in addition to television and radio,” says Barbara Groeblinghoff, project manager at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Zimbabwe, “only the social media remain as a place of resistance.” The government became increasingly hysterical, especially since the ruling party had to give way to the opposition in free elections in neighboring Zambia. In order to prevent a similar mobilization of young voters in Zimbabwe, a system of deterrence is being used: “They are trying to make an example of a few celebrities on their behalf.”
“We are intimidated to remain silent and inactive.”
Groebinghoff, who was on site as an observer at the trial against Dangarembga and Barnes, says that the aim is obviously to silence the author politically: “In her reasoning, the judge undermined the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression. That only applies if “If you don’t share it in public. That means that from now on, every tweet, every statement on social media means Dangarembga has the potential to go to jail.” Dangarembga is one of the most important and most widely read writers in her country. Her novel “This Mournable Body” was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020, and in 2021 she received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
“We are cowed,” the author wrote Thursday, “to remain silent and inactive while oppression and corruption mount, while our hope for our children’s future dwindles. We urge you all, peacefully, for freedom, justice and dignity in our country to rise”. She has announced that she will appeal the verdict.