When the fake news is true and ‘or …

The newspaper headline posters show the main headlines of Zimbabwe’s daily newspapers. (Photo: EPA-EFE / AARON UFUMELI)

In his latest front-line report, Maverick Citizen’s Thandekile Moyo continues a series of articles analyzing life in Zimbabwe under the Covid-19 blockade; what has changed, what has not and what will never change, as long as the corrupt and complicit regime continues to use the power and resources of the state to stay in power.

On April 14, ZBC News online, the official Twitter page for Zimbabwe’s only television station, posted a video of President Emmerson Mnangagwa saying he was aware of a false statement on social media that he was going to extend the blockade until May 3. He said he would ask the Central Intelligence Office (CIO) to investigate him and that if the person responsible was caught he should receive “at least 20 years in prison” for “spreading falsehoods.”

“You have to make an example,” said the president.

The CIO operates under the Office of the President. Many of Zimbabwe’s kidnappings, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances are said to be committed by the CIO. The Chief (Minister) of State Security who oversees the CIO, Owen Mudha Ncube, was recently added to the United States sanctions list for human rights violations. Emmerson Mnangagwa himself was the responsible CIO minister during the Gukurahundi genocide that left 20,000 civilians dead in Matebeleland.

Hearing the President go to the trouble of publicly threatening whoever wrote the statement with the CIOs was disturbing. We all feared the worst, not only because of who the President threatened, but also for ourselves.

However, on Sunday 21 In April, which was to be the last day of closing, the president announced that he would extend it until May 3, 2020, just as the alleged false statement had said. This gave rise to various questions and suspicions. Had the statement really been false or was the president the victim of a leak from his office? Many wondered what the alleged mongerer liar would be charged with if they found him, now that the president had announced exactly what the statement had said he had decided.

“Was it fake news after all and will the fake news charge remain?” people asked

On April 20, the Police of the Republic of Zimbabwe (ZRP) tweeted that Lovemore Zvokusekwa had been arrested for “Posting or communicating false statements harmful to the state as defined in section 31 (a) (i) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Chapter 9:23”.

As the president had stated in the video, this crime attracts 20 years in prison and because the president had promised to give an example of this case, there was a public outcry. Some questioned the word “circulating” in office.

Did Zvokusekwa produce the letter or simply circulate it like hundreds of other Zimbabweans did when the letter fell into their inboxes and timelines?

Were they going to find and arrest everyone who had sent the letter?

Some argued that the law of which Zvokusekwa was being accused had long been declared unconstitutional by the constitutional court in the case of Chimakure vs the Attorney General, declaring the arrest and accused of illegality and abuse of the rights of Zvekusekwa. Some simply asked: Was it false news that the blockade had been extended when the President had extended it?

All of these questions did not prevent the state from dragging Zvekusekwa before a magistrate on April 20 and detaining him in custody until May 13, a total of 23 days.

Something to laugh about

The case of Zvokusekwa, whose last name in Shona ironically means “something to laugh about,” illustrates a dangerous trend seen elsewhere. Covid-19 has provided an excuse for authoritarians to increase the stifling of dissent. The chosen destination has been attacks on freedom of expression and the media.

In Zimbabwe, starting with the case of the late Zororo Makamba, the first person to test positive in the country, the government has been accused of manipulating information about the true status of infections and their response. The digital space or social networks has been the alternative of access for a country hungry for information. It has also been a revolutionary space for government criticism, exposure to corruption and other excesses and demands for responsibility. That, apparently, is the space in which the government has its eyes set.

But he faces a dilemma.

The government itself needs the digital media space for its own propaganda. The national broadcaster, ZBC, maintains a Twitter identifier that it actively uses to produce propaganda. On the page they post stories about everything the President does, as well as stories highlighting the “generosity” and “benevolence” of the President and First Lady.

For years, the Zimbabwean government has used diabolical and draconian twin laws to stifle political activity and dissent and public criticism: the Public Order and Security Act (Posa) and the Access to Information and Privacy Protection Act (AIPPA).

The former, by requiring police permission for public gatherings, has been used to prevent the opposition from holding their protests, while the latter has been used to intimidate and prevent journalists from doing their jobs. When he tried to show potential Western investors that he and his government were different from the late former President Robert Mugabe, Mnangagwa promised to repeal the two laws. Replacement erasers have been introduced, but they are no different. Meanwhile, Posa was used in August 2019 to stop opposition protests.

Repression code

It is now clear that while all the attention has focused on Posa and AIPPA, the real devil is in the Penal Code used to arrest Zvokusekwa, who is equally draconian but carries much more severe penalties.

The president’s obvious joy in announcing to a nervous nation his eagerness to put his feared CIO on a citizen and then send him to jail for spreading falsehoods demonstrates the importance of this legislation in the regime’s toolbox of repression. The government’s intention to use the Penal Code to increase its autocratic volume during the blockade was set out by the Permanent Secretary for Information hours before the publication of the regulations establishing the blockade, when he threatened that people would soon be seen in prison. for spreading falsehoods. .

The Covid-19 legal instrument did not disappoint, verbatim importing the full code provisions related to criminalizing the publication of falsehoods. What seemed lost to the government, which does not seem to respect its own laws, much less its own courts, is that this entire provision of the Penal Code was annulled by the constitutional court in the Chimakure case six years ago. The Minister of Justice quoted in the case at the time was none other than Emmerson Mnangagwa, now President. Nothing demonstrates the levels of illegality and lack of responsibility more than this. This is clearly a government that does not consider itself bound by anything or accountable to anyone.

War on digital democracy

It is clear that digital or social media will continue to be a new battleground for repression in Zimbabwe.

In the wake of Covid-19, the disastrous political flaws in the government’s response have been accompanied by accusations of shocking levels of major corruption related to the procurement and abuse of Covid-19 aid. Last week it was reported that a company led by business partner (President’s son) Collins Mnangagwa, Delish Nguwaya, received a $ 60 million contract to deliver Covid-19 related pharmaceuticals. The story broke in the digital media.

The Minister of Finance announced a program to provide livelihood support through cash transfers to vulnerable households. The contract to disburse this money was awarded to a telecommunications company closely linked to the political elite.

To make matters worse, the process of determining who is eligible for government funding remains a mystery. The only explanation the Finance Minister gave was that they used a “complex algorithm” to select beneficiaries. With such opaque explanations and little accountability, it is clear that even this money has probably been looted. At Covid-19, the government has found a new golden goose for its voraciously corrupt appetite.

In all this, the space of social and digital networks remains firm to guarantee that these scandals come to light, that the president is called to respond for his videos that threaten citizens, the Minister of Health is asked to explain its policies and reports on Covid-19 and the Minister of Finance is asked to justify how government money is spent.

The power of digital and social media to counter state propaganda was also seen last week when the information secretary posted this tweet:

“We received 65 Zimbabweans from the United Kingdom. The available quarantine location is Belvedere Teachers College. Demanding hotels are refused this accommodation. The government cannot pay. Why come from a Covid-19 access point during a shutdown and demand fancy installations at high public cost?

The returnees managed to expose the government by lying by posting videos from the university where they were quarantined, showing that the reason they asked to be moved to a better place was that there was no running water and more than 20 people shared only two bathrooms. . The plan to mislead the public as to why returnees rejected the quarantine facility failed terribly. The videos, by default, also served to expose the dire conditions in which the professors’ college students have been living for years.

With a crumbling and discredited state media company, the government needs the digital space. You will continue to need it for your propaganda, for public relations exercises for the President and First Lady, and for Covid-19. But, with its tendency to capture and monopolize everything, it has yet to find a formula to control the digital media space beyond unconstitutionally disconnecting the Internet. It also has to find a legal way to prevent Zimbabweans from sharing information exposing their flaws in addition to provisions of the Penal Code, rejected by the constitutional court but blatantly used to detain a civilian for nearly a month.

In all this, it is clear that if the falsehood law were ever constitutional and someone needed to be jailed, it would be the government and its litany of propagandists. He also highlights that by crying only for the repeal of Posa and AIPPA, citizens have ignored a greater danger: the devil is in the Penal Code.

It is unacceptable that the President of Zimbabwe, who has never spent a single day in custody for any of his crimes, from the genocide to the looting of minerals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the overthrow of the Zanu-PF companies as the administration alleges de Mugabe before the coup, can arrest and threaten a man with 20 years in prison for spreading false news that turned out to be true. DM / MC

Thandekile Moyo is a writer and human rights defender from Zimbabwe. For the past four years, he has been using print, digital and social media (Twitter: @mamoxn) to expose human rights abuses, poor governance and corruption. Moyo holds a BA in Geography and Environmental Studies from Midlands State University in Zimbabwe.