Tsitsi Dangarembga, winner of the 2021 Peace Prize for the German Book Trade, had to defend herself again in court this Wednesday in her hometown of Harare against allegations of incitement to public violence.
As Jordi Razum, project manager of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, reports, the writer affirmed that with her protest action on July 31, 2020, she wanted to "work for a better Zimbabwe for everyone" and express how she felt as a committed citizen of her country feels.
She said she didn't interact with anyone, not even spoke to journalist Julie Barnes, who protested with her and was arrested.
She had invoked her freedom of expression, repeatedly asked why she was arrested, received no answer and allowed herself to be arrested without resistance.
The prosecutor asked whether the fact that the two demonstrators did not address a specific audience should be understood as an indication of their intention to incite the population.
Two years after the arrest, defending the two accused alone has cost the Zimbabwe Human Rights Lawyers Association $30,000.
Lawyers are dependent on financial support to defend Tsitsi Dangarembga and Julia Barnes with a large number of other cases to come.
The process observer Jordi Razum sees the number and duration of human rights processes as the state's strategy of tying up the opposition's resources and forces in view of the upcoming elections next year.
The trial is scheduled to continue on August 15.