Activist Munyaradzi Gwisai emerged from court pumping a defiant fist in the air. His conviction, with five of his colleagues, on charges of plotting to topple Robert Mugabe may silence some of the president’s critics.
The group was arrested last year after police raided the venue of what the activists said had been a discussion on the possibility of an Egypt-style mass protest in Zimbabwe.
The six escaped with a fine, community service and suspended jail terms. But the fact that they were found guilty at all may have set a precedent that may result in more convictions of activists.
Police said the group had been plotting violence to remove Mugabe. They had been watching news coverage of the Egypt protests and the court ruled it was to get ideas for similar action in Zimbabwe.
As the magistrate read the verdict, there were gasps of shock from the dozens of activists in the courtroom. Arrests for plotting to topple Mugabe are common, but convictions are rare. Activists now fear a precedent may have been set, forcing rights groups to scale back their campaigns.
The case is an embarrassment for the country, especially because some world headlines suggested that the group was arrested for merely watching television.
Failing basic rights
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said the conviction conveyed an image of a country failing to respect basic rights. The conviction sought to ‘criminalise” civil liberties, he said.
‘This not only besmirches the government’s image, but serves to confirm that Zimbabwe has not moved an inch in its respect for human rights,” Tsvangirai said. But the case also adds pressure on Tsvangirai, who has been criticised for failing to protect his civil society allies.
Ahead of the sentencing, Gwisai had spoken of his anxiety. But, perhaps emboldened by the fact that previous similar cases had always fizzled out in court, he remained defiant. ‘It is hard to take, given that one has a family to think about. But these are the sacrifices that those that have gone before us, and those in Egypt and elsewhere, have made. So we must prepare ourselves,” Gwisai said.
During the trial, he never refrained from criticism of Mugabe. In one cross-examination session, prosecutors, perhaps trying to paint the group as rebels, quizzed Gwisai on whether he thought Mugabe should step down.
‘It is no coincidence that in all the richest and the most powerful nations in the world, such as the People’s Republic of China, the United States of America and Great Britain, their supreme leaders are less than 55 years old,” he replied. ‘So yes, President Mugabe must go.” Asked whether he would call Mugabe a dictator, Gwisai said: ‘I would call him an authoritarian leader.”
Gwisai is a long-time critic of Mugabe and a former Movement for Democratic Change MP. He holds radical left-wing views, which led to his sacking from the MDC after he said the party had been ‘hijacked by the bourgeoisie” and failed to respond to the need for land reform.
Questionable motives
Arguing for the maximum 10-year jail term on Tuesday, prosecutor Edmore Nyazamba said the group would have been stoned in biblical times.
Magistrate Kudakwashe Jarabini said the prosecutors had proved their case against Gwisai, Antonater Choto, Tatenda Mombeyarara, Edson Chakuma, Hopewell Gumbo and Welcome Zimuto.
He said it was an ‘insult” for anyone to expect the court to believe the meeting had been innocent. Watching the video was no crime, he said, but ‘it is the motive behind it that is questionable”.
The six ‘took turns to incite people to revolt against the government like they had seen on the video”.
Leaving the courthouse, Gwisai raised a fist and shouted ‘a luta continua!” to waiting members of his International Socialist Organisation.
‘We are not deterred, we are not intimidated,” Gwisai said. ‘To the ordinary people this is not surprising. This is a staple of what is happening in Africa and across the world. So, we take it as it comes. The struggle continues.”
Gwisai is suing the police and the home affairs minister for the torture he said he suffered in detention. One of the activists, Hopewell Gumbo, said the group had been subjected to abuse for days after their arrest.
Dewa Mavhinga of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition pressure group said the conviction had been a ‘direct message” to activists. ‘We reject that message of fear,” Mavhinga said.
Group beaten, imprisoned, ostracised for watching a video
I was on a train in the United States on the way to visit an old friend when my phone rang. It was another friend in Zimbabwe, who had awful news. Shouting into the receiver to try to make sense of things, my fear and desperation were all too clear and my four-year-old son immediately knew that something was terribly wrong.
Munya, my husband and Sankara’s dad, had been arrested with 46 others. One, the state witness, was rapidly released.
It was a Saturday afternoon in Harare and they were discussing the momentous demonstrations of people power in North Africa.
It was a peaceful gathering of student activists, union members and working-class people who still believed in the possibility of a fairer and more just world.
They had got hold of a compilation of news clippings from international TV broadcasters, chronicling the days of revolution and the fall of dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt — clippings that had been seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
The next month was an eye-opening journey for me into the fear and dysfunction of Zimbabwe.
I had lived there in 2004 and made regular trips there. Munya always promised to join me in my various postings around the world, but he was too committed to making a difference in his own country ever to leave permanently.
By the time I got to Harare a week later, we knew the situation was serious. This was not going to follow the pattern of earlier detentions and beatings.
The authorities’ fear of the domino effect of events unfolding in North Africa and the Middle East meant that the charges needed to send a strong message, particularly to the people of Harare’s high-density neighbourhoods, where life is hard and unemployment high.
The attorney general waited six days before laying crazy charges of treason and planning to overthrow an elected government, charges that carry the death sentence or 20 years in prison.
The prosecutor used delaying tactics in court to draw the ordeal out and ensure that their extended time in remand would serve as a severe punishment and a clear warning to them and others.
Seventeen of the men spent a week in solitary confinement. The 11 women were forced to do hard labour, even though no sentence had been handed down. Indeed, the case had not yet even gone to court.
But it was not just the stories from inside the prison that were so devastating. For many of those arrested, especially couples who had gone to the meeting together, the reality at home was grim. It was the end of the month. Rents and school fees needed to be paid. One child spent a week in hospital sick with fever. Another two-year-old developed acute malnutrition because her grandmother was unable to feed her. But perhaps what scared me most on my visits to some of the families was the hostility directed towards them.
Instead of the community rallying round in solidarity, there were stories of intimidation and harassment by Zanu-PF youth militia.
In one home — a small, dilapidated two-roomed house — the children sat inside, waiting for their parents to be released, living in fear of their neighbours who accused them of being members of the opposition.
Two weeks after the meeting, 39 of the accused were acquitted by a magistrate and released. He agreed with the defence that it was impossible for the one state witness to monitor the movements of so many people.
But the most damning evidence against the state came from a 22-year-old woman who had simply been selling air time in the building when the police raided it. Answering in Shona, her responses clearly illustrated her confusion and her innocence.
Had she known what they were saying in the meeting? No, she had been minding her own business. Her testimony made it abundantly clear that the entire process was a farce but one that was not remotely funny.
And, sadly, for many of those released, the punishment did not stop when they stepped free from court after their two-week ordeal.
In spite of their innocence, many came home to the harsh reality of further retribution. They found that people were afraid to be associated with them — with people who had been in trouble with the ‘law”, who had been in prison.
An HIV-positive volunteer counsellor and father of five lost his stipend and his post. A union worker lost his position as others took advantage of his trouble to play internal politics. A school cleaner lost her job. Another worker was sacked because the company was owned by a Zanu-PF loyalist. And Munya lost a month’s salary from the University of Zimbabwe for not being at work.
By using the power of Facebook and Twitter, this case generated interest and outrage around the globe.
But it is just one of many cases.Lawyers for Human Rights have been involved in more than 800 cases since January.
In April, an 82-year-old village headman, who had been arrested along with Movement for Democratic Change MP Douglas Mwonzora, died.
He had never recovered from being beaten and then spending three weeks in prison.
As Munya said: ‘This is one more shameful tragedy for our country.” — Shantha Bloemen
Shantha Bloemen is the wife of Munyaradzi Gwisai, one of the six Zimbabweans sentenced for watching the Arab Spring video.