HARARE, Zimbabwe
World-renowned author Tsitsi Dangarembga was found guilty Thursday of promoting public violence in her home country of Zimbabwe for participating in a largely peaceful antigovernment protest in 2020 that called for reforms.
She was fined around $120 and
given a six-month suspended jail sentence.
Dangarembga and her friend,
Julie Barnes, were arrested after walking down a street in a suburb of the
capital, Harare, holding placards. Dangarembga’s placard read “We Want Better.
Reform Our Institutions” and Barnes held one that called for arrested
journalists to be freed. They were part of a low-key, antigovernment
demonstration but were arrested and detained along with several others who were
also taken to court.
Rights groups had criticized
the charges against Dangarembga, an award-winning writer and filmmaker, as part
of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s attempts to silence opposition in the
long-troubled southern African country.
Dangarembga, 63, said she
would appeal her conviction.
“I am not surprised by the
verdict because we are in a situation where media freedom is not encouraged,”
she said outside the courthouse. “So this means the space for freedom of
expression is shrinking and is being criminalized.”
Mnangagwa, who was
instrumental in forcing out Zimbabwe’s autocratic former President Robert
Mugabe in 2017, has been accused of responding
with force to any criticism ahead of a presidential election next
year.
Zimbabweans initially welcomed
the change of no longer living under Mugabe’s 37-year rule. But under
Mnangagwa’s leadership, dozens of people — opposition supporters, political
activists, journalists, church leaders, trade union members and student leaders
— have been arrested and brought to court on charges that legal experts say
amount to harassment and are reminiscent of the Mugabe days.
Dagarembga and Barnes argued
in court that they were merely exercising their right to freedom of expression.
The judge, Magistrate Barbara
Mateko, disagreed and ruled the pair were intent on provoking violence.
“Clearly they wanted to pass a
message. It was not peaceful at all,” Mateko said in her judgment. “They were
expressing opinions and it was meant to provoke.”
Dagarembga won the
prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade last year. Her works
include the “Nervous Conditions” trilogy, made up of the bestselling “Nervous
Conditions” (1988), “The Book of Not” (2006) and “This Mournable Body” (2018).
Dangarembga was the first
Black woman to win the prize and was praised by the award’s judges as “not just
one of her country’s most important artists but also a widely audible voice of
Africa in contemporary literature.”
They pointed to her commitment
to promoting culture, human rights and political change in Zimbabwe.
“Nervous Conditions” won the
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1989 and is widely acknowledged as one of the
finest books by an African author. “This Mournable Body” was shortlisted
for the Booker Prize for fiction in 2020, a few months after
Dangarembga was arrested.
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