Transform Zimbabwe Communications

It’s been 30 days since the day Jacob Ngarivhume had called for protests to petition the government to seriously look into corruption, a cancer that is threatening to devour everyone in its wake.

Ngarivhume had been arrested 10 days earlier, on the 20th of July charged with inciting the public into violent protests. History would have informed the state that in all the protests that Jacob Ngarivhume had led in the past, none of them turned violent.

He led protests against the National Schools Pledge as well as protests against the introduction of the Bond Notes and several others. All these protests ended with the handing in of signed petitions to government officials.

The government’s response to the 31st July proposed protests was unprecedented.

Ngarivhume together with freelance journalist Hopewell Chin’ono were thrown into Harare remand prison.

Soon after their initial appearance in court, they were denied bail and thrown into Chikurubi Maximum Prison.

The state would flex its muscle and deter would-be protesters by putting the two gentlemen in leg irons and handcuffs each time they were brought to court.

At one instance, the keys to the holding cells could not be located resulting in Ngarivhume being embarrassingly driven back to Chikurubi until the keys were located.

On another event, the handcuffs were said to have malfunctioned, allowing Ngarivhume to attend and address the court while handcuffed.

This was unprecedented. A pattern was beginning to emerge that the state was using the case to instill fear in the population.

On the 31st July, the state deployed all its security assets to ensure noone would protest. The result was predictable, it ended up being a state enforced mass stay away.

Jacob Ngarivhume and Hopewell Chin’ono have appeared at both the Magistrates Court and High Court for bail and the state has remained adamant.

The state’s case is centered around messages that were posted on Twitter. Based on these social media posts, the state went into panic mode.

It is disturbing to note that there are people within Zanu Pf Central Committee who were found with flyers in support of a Zanu Pf organised protest which was meant to be held parallel to the Ngarivhume organised protest.

These individuals only received a slap on the wrist for their undertaking while Ngarivhume and Hopewell Chin’ono languish in remand prison for social media posts. This only shows the extent of brutality and human rights abuse that the state is willing to go in crushing dissenting voices. It clearly places Zimbabwe as a nation in serious crisis.

It’s been an arduous 40 days of incarceration for Ngarivhume and Chin’ono as well as for Kurauone and Sikhala but the nation remains hopeful that one day there will be leadership that listens to alternative views.

Until that day, it’s been a month anniversary from 31st July 2020.