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Tsitsi Dangarembga has been calling for reforms in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean award-winning author Tsitsi Dangarembga, nominated for this year’s Booker Prize, was arrested in the country’s capital Harare during an anti-government protest.
Dangarembga, 61, and another protester were grouped in a police truck while carrying placards.
The government warned that participation in Friday’s demonstration is considered an insurrection.
Police and soldiers patrol cities where the streets are mostly empty.
Opposition parties and civil society organizations had called for protests against alleged government corruption and a deepening economic crisis with inflation of more than 700%.
But President Emmerson Mnangagwa accused the opposition of exploiting the country’s economic challenges to topple his government.
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An opposition politician who called the demonstration is in custody, arrested last week and accused of inciting violence.
He remains behind bars, along with prominent investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, who was arrested at the same time.
In June, Chin’ono had exposed an alleged billionaire scandal involving supplies of coronavirus, revelations that led to the dismissal of the health minister.
Why is protest prohibited?
Authorities say the demonstration is not allowed due to coronavirus restrictions.
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There is a strong police presence in Harare
Security forces have stepped up their patrols and the streets are deserted despite government assurances that the public should do their normal business without fear, reports Shingai Nyoka of the BBC in Harare,
Covid-19 checkpoints have meant that only essential services workers have been allowed in the city center, she says.
Most people have chosen to stay home, and the few who have come out to demonstrate have faced arrest.
The main opposition party, Movimiento Democrático del Movimiento (MDC), says several of its supporters, including a party official, have been detained.
A photographer for the AFP news agency reports that the police gathered Dangarembga and another protester in a truck full of policemen armed with AK-47 rifles and riot gear.
Dangarembga carried banners calling for reforms and the release of Chin’ono, the agency says.
The author later tweeted that they were being held at the Borrowdale Police Station, and then said, “They may not be able to tweet for a while.”
On Thursday Dangarembga had told the BBC that demonstrating against the government was “necessary” given the situation in the country.
“All sectors are disintegrating. Health, education, economy. I am concerned about my safety. It would be naive not to have it because we have a very repressive regime and we know that it is most likely to be deployed against the people.” said.
“This is one of the complaints that people have, that the security forces, the security service is often deployed against the people, rather than deployed for the protection of the people.”
Who Is Tsitsi Dangarembga?
The writer and film director was born in the city of Mutoko, in the northeast of the country, when he was under the rule of the white minority.
At the age of two, she moved with her parents to the UK and returned to her homeland in 1980, just before Zimbabwe became independent.
More about Zimbabwe’s economic crisis:
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- Is Zimbabwe once again on the verge of collapse?
- Zimbabwe coronavirus victim died ‘alone and scared’
His first novel Nervous Diseases won the African section of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1989.
Other award-winning credits include Neria, Zimbabwe’s most successful film released in 1993.
His latest book, This Mournable Body, is on the long list of the Booker Prize, which was presented earlier this week.
It is a sequel to Nervous Conditions, and “channels the hope and potential of a young girl and a fledgling nation to take us on a journey to discover where lives go after hope is gone,” says the Award website. Booker.
