Zimbabwe Arrests Journalist Over Tweet on President 

Harare, Zim­bab­we — 

Before his arrest Mon­day, Zim­Live edi­tor Mduduzi Math­uthu had been in hid­ing for about two weeks.

He got wor­ried after uniden­ti­fied peo­ple had come to his home in the city of Bul­awayo, say­ing police were look­ing for him.

But Math­uthu, who spoke with VOA before his arrest, said at that time, nei­ther the police spokesper­son nor the cen­tral police sta­tion appeared to know if he was wanted.

“So I called the police spokesper­son Paul Nyathi,” Math­uthu said. “He didn’t know any­thing. I sent the lawyer to go to cen­tral police sta­tion. He was informed that no one was look­ing for me. So it began this mys­te­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion where we start­ed feel­ing that per­haps the inten­tions of those who came to the house were not as good. We then filed a report with the police for attempt­ed abduc­tion or kidnapping.”

Police lat­er wrote to Mathuthu’s lawyers say­ing they want­ed to inter­view him. And when he was tak­en into cus­tody Mon­day, he was told the case is linked to a tweet com­ment­ing on Pres­i­dent Emmer­son Mnangagwa’s appear­ance on nation­al television.

In that tweet, Math­uthu said the pres­i­dent got drunk before com­ing on TV.

Njab­u­lo Ncube, of the Zim­bab­we Nation­al Edi­tors Forum, said the arrest is rais­ing con­cerns of media harass­ment over polit­i­cal cov­er­age. Cas­es of jour­nal­ist arrests are com­mon dur­ing an elec­tion sea­son, Ncube said. Zim­bab­we is due to hold gen­er­al elec­tions in 2023.

“It’s a har­bin­ger of things to come,” Ncube said. “Ed (Pres­i­dent Mnan­gag­wa) has actu­al­ly fol­lowed the foot­steps of the late pres­i­dent Robert Mugabe. Noth­ing has changed. Jour­nal­ism being treat­ed like a crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. Mr. Math­uthu must be allowed to prac­tice his jour­nal­ism unhindered.”

Upon tak­ing pow­er in 2017, Pres­i­dent Mnan­gag­wa – referred to some in Zim­bab­we as “Ed,” after the ini­tials of his first and mid­dle names – he promised to improve the media land­scape. But rights groups, includ­ing the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists, have doc­u­ment­ed sev­er­al cas­es of media work­ers detained or ques­tioned in recent months for cov­er­age of pol­i­tics or local elections.

In Mathuthu’s case, the Media Insti­tute of South­ern Africa is pro­vid­ing legal assis­tance. The watch­dog group says those con­vict­ed of under­min­ing the pres­i­dent can face up to a year in prison.

Nom­pi­lo Siman­je, from the watchdog’s Zim­bab­we branch, said Math­uthu has come under pres­sure before for his jour­nal­ism, includ­ing dur­ing protests in 2020.

“Mduduzi Math­uthu has been in a sit­u­a­tion with police before when his home was ran­sacked in 2020 and his nephew was abduct­ed over some accu­sa­tions and MISA Zim­bab­we had to inter­vene,” Siman­je said. “So, fol­low­ing his emer­gency call for sup­port, MISA Zim­bab­we deployed a lawyer.”

Zim­bab­we author­i­ties declined to com­ment on Mathuthu’s case on Mon­day, say­ing they will talk only when the case is resolved. The jour­nal­ist is due in court lat­er this week.

Zim­bab­we author­i­ties declined to com­ment on Mathuthu’s case on Mon­day, say­ing they will talk only when the case is resolved. The jour­nal­ist is due in court lat­er this week.