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Award-winning documentarian Hopewell Chin’ono has never been one to hold back his opinion.
Even as a young journalism student in the early 1990s, he was not afraid to speak up and demand accountability.
“In a way, he kept track of when a teacher was absent from class,” recalls former classmate Njabulo Ncube. “He would say, ‘We came here to learn and teachers can’t be tolerated skipping classes.’ At one point, he took the matter to the head of the university. “
Some 30 years later, the independent journalist and anti-corruption activist remains outspoken, a symbol of defiance for many in a country where few dare to protest.
‘He will not flinch’
On Monday, Chin’ono will appear in court for alleged incitement to public violence following his endorsement of planned anti-government protests in late July.
Chin’ono’s latest troubles began in June after he used social media to expose allegedly corrupt coronavirus-related contracts for the acquisition of $ 60 million protective equipment for healthcare workers. Along with senior government officials, Chin’ono and other journalists also linked President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s son to the scandal, accusations denied by both Collins Mnangagwa and the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu-PF) Patriotic Front, the party that has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980.
“Zanu-PF has noted with concern the systematic and well-choreographed and sponsored attacks on the integrity of the first family by unscrupulous characters like Hopewell Chin’ono, this time targeting the president’s son,” spokesman Patrick Chinamasa said in a press conference in July. 4. “We are aware that these unfounded attacks did not start today, but must end immediately.”
It was a chilling warning that led Chin’ono to say on Twitter that “his life is now in danger” but also to declare that he “will not flinch from fear.”
On July 20, less than two weeks before the protests organized by the opposition, the police broke a glass door when they raided Chin’ono’s house in Harare and took him away, accusing him of “inciting to participate in a meeting with the intention to promote public violence, breaches of the peace or intolerance ”.
He spent 45 days in prison. After his release in September on bail, he shed light on the poor state of the penal system and prisons in the country, which he compared to “concentration camps.”
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Two weeks ago, he was arrested again and charged with contempt of court, but prosecutors later dropped the charges. Since then, he has been accused again of trying to “defeat the course of justice” after criticizing the country’s National Prosecutor’s Office in the case of a gold smuggler with political connections.
“Everything is designed to intimidate journalists,” Chin’ono, who denies all charges, told Al Jazeera. “I am not intimidated. If they do this to me, other journalists will think twice before reporting corruption. “
Undeterred, he has continued to post to his 172,000 followers on Twitter and 63,000 followers on Facebook.
“In 1980 [when Zimbabwe attained independence from Britain], I was 9 years old. Today I am 49 years old [and] the same people who told me that I was the future are saying that they will be with us until 2030 as they continue to plunder everyone’s future, ”he recently wrote on Facebook. “I will not allow my children’s future to be stolen like mine through corruption, looting and looting. No.”
‘A brilliant journalist’
Born in Harare on March 26, 1971, Chin’ono entered journalism in a somewhat circumstantial way, he confesses.
At the age of 18, Prize Beat magazine commissioned him a profile of Jamaican reggae star Dennis Brown, who in 1989 toured Zimbabwe. Dressed in a school uniform, he appeared for an interview with Brown at his Holiday Inn suite in the capital, Harare.
“I spent hours with Dennis and his wife talking about reggae, smoking and drinking,” Chin’one recalls. “It became a great party.”
From those early days on, his future career was somewhat short for him. He enrolled in the Zimbabwe Institute of Mass Communication, where he excelled.
“He’s a brilliant journalist,” says Ncube, the current coordinator of the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum. “In college, he was at the top of the class and he was well liked.”
After graduating in 1993, he left Zimbabwe to further his studies in the UK, where he later worked for broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV.
He finally settled in Zimbabwe in 2007, but the state of his country under then-President Robert Mugabe left him dismayed.
“The economy totally changed. The prices were incredibly high and the stores were empty, ”he says.
“The state had collapsed and corruption was institutionalized.”
Driven by the dire economic situation at home and the impact it was having on Zimbabweans, Chin’ono began filming Pain in my Heart, a compelling documentary on the state of affairs in Zimbabwe.
“The documentary was a juxtaposition of two stories of a political issue around two people infected with HIV and AIDS. The other was receiving medication from a church while the other couldn’t afford it, ”he says. “The other lived while the other died from AIDS-related complications.”
Following the success of Pain in my Heart, which in 2008 earned Chin’ono the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Award, the Kaiser Family Foundation Award for Excellence in Information on HIV / AIDS in Africa, and the CNN’s African Journalist of the Year, founded Television International in Zimbabwe, a news production company, and continued to collaborate with international broadcasters for special assignments.
At all times, he has remained committed to exposing injustice.
“I believe in a society that respects the rule of law, that respects the vote, and a society that does not encourage corruption,” says Chin’ono. “Those are my core beliefs.”
On social media, many seem to share Chin’ono’s views, and a cursory analysis of the comments shows overwhelming support and messages of solidarity. Some offer prayers for protection; others simply write notes of encouragement.
“Brother Hopewell, we cannot thank you enough for the work you are doing to combat corruption in our country,” a comment reads. “Hopewell our hope, corruption destroys lives. My wish is that one day all of our people come together to fight evil corruption, ”says another user.
Chin’ono himself often takes to social media to criticize the government, but things haven’t always been so rough between him and the Mnangagwa administration.
When Mnangagwa assumed power in a military coup in November 2017 and promised political and economic reforms, Chin’ono, like many other Zimbabweans, supported the ZANU-PF stalwart.
“I supported the idea of reforms that he [Mnangagwa] I was chasing, ”says Chin’ono.
“I thought it was genuine and there was no point criticizing the coup itself because it had happened and it was irreversible. For the purposes of progress, it was sensible to support his reforms. “
“Fast forward to October 2018, I had realized there were no reforms,” he says, noting that it was then that “it started to make noise.”
In August that year, six opposition supporters were killed when soldiers opened fire on protesters against what they saw as an attempt by the ZANU-PF party to steal hotly contested elections. Meanwhile, Zimbabweans continue to struggle to cope with a deepening economic crisis characterized by skyrocketing inflation and foreign exchange shortages, as well as a devastating combination of a rapidly weakening currency, stagnant wages and high unemployment.
Human rights defenders and human rights groups have also denounced an “unprecedented” crackdown on dissent that has resulted in the arrest of dozens of activists and opposition officials. The government has denied having stifled opposing voices.
But just before his return to court, Chin’ono says he will continue to fight irregularities.
“Fighting corruption is something we should all do, and it is not my fight alone,” he says.
“We don’t have to wait for a moment of inspiration to start fighting corruption. It is something we must do every day.”
For former schoolmate Ncube, this kind of determination from Chin’ono is nothing new.
“I remember, we had a housing problem at the university in those days and he fought for it. We were struggling and yet there were newly built hostels at the university that had not yet been officially opened, ”he says.
In the end, under sustained pressure from Chin’ono and others, school officials assigned rooms to students.
“I’m not surprised that he’s going up against the authorities,” says Ncube.
