NICOLE FRITZ: Ruling against brave Beatrice Mtetwa invites only outrage
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If, in these quasi-apocalyptic times, there were to be a type of Noah’s ark rerun, but instead of saving pairs of animals to repopulate a post-flood earth only the most exceptional representative of every profession and skill set was to be saved for a post-pandemic world, there’d probably be little disagreement that the place reserved for the human rights lawyer would have to be filled by Zimbabwean Beatrice Mtetwa.
Not only is she supremely skilled. She’s brave and fearless and indefatigable. She has to be: she’s been providing legal defence to those targeted by the Zimbabwean government, first under Robert Mugabe, now Emmerson Mnangagwa, for well over 20 years. Those clients haven’t only been human rights activists or opposition politicians. In 2016 she represented Zimbabwe’s war veterans, who had been alienated and, in consequence, targeted by Mugabe in his frantically desperate last clutches at power.
That she was their defence lawyer of choice showed the consummate professional she is, but also a rich irony: the war veterans’ thuggery had been frequently deployed against her clients, and indeed Mtetwa herself, to harass and intimidate. On Tuesday morning this week, standing on the steps outside the Harare magistrate’s court, she explained to the assembled journalists looking for comment from her that if any of them got arrested and wanted her as their lawyer, “I’ll be there for you.”
She may well be called on: Reporters Without Borders has estimated that of more than a 100 press freedom violations linked to the coverage of the Covid pandemic recorded in Africa since its start, a quarter have occurred in Zimbabwe.
Mtetwa has been acting for Hopewell Chin’ono, an investigative journalist whose exposure of corrupt Covid-related procurement earned him the ire of government authorities. Arrested together with Jacob Ngarivhume, opposition leader and convener of the planned #31July nationwide protests against corruption, the men have been charged with “incitement to participate in a gathering with intent to promote public violence, breaches of peace or bigotry or alternatively incitement to commit public violence”.
Not only have Chin’ono and Ngarivhume been inexplicably denied bail, but in a clear demonstration that government authorities seek to use the legal system as a tool to intimidate and repress, they’ve been clandestinely transferred to the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, held in leg irons, and denied personal protective equipment (PPE), warm clothing, adequate food and access to their families and legal representatives. ...
Not only is she supremely skilled. She’s brave and fearless and indefatigable. She has to be: she’s been providing legal defence to those targeted by the Zimbabwean government, first under Robert Mugabe, now Emmerson Mnangagwa, for well over 20 years. Those clients haven’t only been human rights activists or opposition politicians. In 2016 she represented Zimbabwe’s war veterans, who had been alienated and, in consequence, targeted by Mugabe in his frantically desperate last clutches at power.
That she was their defence lawyer of choice showed the consummate professional she is, but also a rich irony: the war veterans’ thuggery had been frequently deployed against her clients, and indeed Mtetwa herself, to harass and intimidate. On Tuesday morning this week, standing on the steps outside the Harare magistrate’s court, she explained to the assembled journalists looking for comment from her that if any of them got arrested and wanted her as their lawyer, “I’ll be there for you.”
She may well be called on: Reporters Without Borders has estimated that of more than a 100 press freedom violations linked to the coverage of the Covid pandemic recorded in Africa since its start, a quarter have occurred in Zimbabwe.
Mtetwa has been acting for Hopewell Chin’ono, an investigative journalist whose exposure of corrupt Covid-related procurement earned him the ire of government authorities. Arrested together with Jacob Ngarivhume, opposition leader and convener of the planned #31July nationwide protests against corruption, the men have been charged with “incitement to participate in a gathering with intent to promote public violence, breaches of peace or bigotry or alternatively incitement to commit public violence”.
Not only have Chin’ono and Ngarivhume been inexplicably denied bail, but in a clear demonstration that government authorities seek to use the legal system as a tool to intimidate and repress, they’ve been clandestinely transferred to the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, held in leg irons, and denied personal protective equipment (PPE), warm clothing, adequate food and access to their families and legal representatives. ...
