THE High Court of Zimbabwe has quashed charges against Zimbabwe Independent editor Faith Zaba.
The court’s judgment ends the State’s frivolous trial against Zaba.
The Zimbabwean State had taken Zaba to court because of a satirical column in which she accurately describes the current Zimbabwe as a mafia State, where systemic corruption, frivolous laws and a compromised judicial system have defined the current State.
For telling the truth, she spent days in jail last year until she was released on bail with strict conditions, which included mandatory reporting to a police station monthly.
This decision by the court confirms two things: first, Zimbabwean authorities were deliberately trying to wear Zaba down emotionally, financially and psychologically with frivolous charges.
Secondly, and most importantly, the State has been exposed that it had no substantive case against her.
Zaba was accused of “undermining or insulting the authority of the President”.
While previous postponements were a result of review processes to have the charges withdrawn, the last postponement was due to the National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe not being ready to proceed with the case.
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As the postponements drag on, Zaba has not only to abandon her work on court appearance days, but also to shoulder legal bills.
The latest postponement can only be read as a calculated strategy.
The State is deploying Stalingrad tactics (intentionally prolonging the case).
This is a familiar tactic deployed against journalists in Zimbabwe — the State subjecting them to lengthy court processes only for the case to be thrown out after emotional and financial damage has been inflicted.
It is an old tactic to instil fear and send a strong message that those in power are immune to any criticism and anyone who dares go against them must suffer personal consequences.
It should be outrageous where any State wastes much-needed taxpayer money on such a frivolous case, with the poisonous mission of removing a journalist from society for expressing her opinion.
It is that much worse in a country that is grappling with extreme poverty levels, a staggering unemployment rate, collapsing healthcare and many other socio-economic factors defining the poor state of Zimbabwe.
As the Committee to Protect Journalists has noted, this case “is a reminder of this government’s willingness to waste public resources by throwing journalists behind bars”.
For years, the principles of media freedom and free expression have been on trial in Zimbabwe.
It is potentially even worse under the current government, where frivolous laws such as the so-called Patriot Act are used to target journalists, critics of the government and freedom of expression activists.
While many ordinary Zimbabweans, both inside and outside the country, must necessarily focus all their attention on trying to eke out a living, it is the vanishingly few voices such as Zaba’s that continue to try to speak truth to power.
It is in the hope that Zimbabwe may yet have a different, democratic and prosperous future that we cannot afford to keep quiet when Zimbabwe tries to silence the likes of Zaba, Blessed Mhlanga and Gideon Madzikatidze by threatening to send them to jail for simply being truth-tellers.
Journalism is not a crime, and journalists should never be treated like criminals by any self-respecting democratic State.
