Acclaimed Zimbabwean filmmaker and novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga has been acquitted by the country’s High Court of staging an anti-government protest in 2020, for which she had initially received a six-month suspended jail sentence and a fine. Dangarembga, 64, is a fierce critic of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government. She has been fighting for years against corruption and demanding reforms and maintained during the trial that Zimbabweans have the right to demonstrate. In 2022, Dangarembga was found guilty by a lower court of participating in a public gathering with intent to incite public violence while breaking COVID-19 protocols. She was tried alongside her friend and fellow protester Julie Barnes, who was also found guilty. Opposition leader Jacob Ngarivhume, who was arrested at the same time as Dangarembga for organising protests, was sentenced last week to four years in prison on charges of inciting violence.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
