Zimbabwe: Facebook User Granted Bail

SW Radio Africa (London)

Lance Guma

1 April 2011

A Bulawayo man arrested for posting a message on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Facebook wall, was granted bail by the High Court in Bulawayo on Thursday.

Thirty-nine year old Vikas Mavhudzi had expressed his approval of protests in Egypt which helped force long time President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

“I am overwhelmed … What happened in Egypt is sending shockwaves to dictators around the world. No weapon but unity of purpose worth emulating, hey,” Mavhudzi wrote on Tsvangirai’s unofficial Facebook page. But Mugabe’s regime arrested him for this innocuous comment and he was charged with attempting to overthrow the government.

A Facebook user had tipped off the police about the comment and police found the statement in Mavhudzi’s phone.

Mavhudzi has been in custody for over 35 days after the Magistrates Court initially denied him bail. But on Thursday High Court Judge, Justice Nicholas Ndou, quashed the ruling that denied him bail. A date for the trial has not been set but commentators say the arrest is part of a tactic to intimidate people from discussing the political situation on social networking websites like Facebook.

Meanwhile, the majority of MDC youths arrested and detained by police since last Friday have now been released from Saucertown police station in Bulawayo. A party official told SW Radio Africa that out of some 30 youths arrested, 25 have now been set free. The youths were arrested following scuffles with ZANU PF youths in Trenance. Police only arrested the MDC youths who were the victims.

The MDC official told us that the youths who remain locked up at Saucertown police station are said to have various criminal records.

In Harare, MDC-T MP and Energy Minister Elton Mangoma was set to spend his second weekend in custody on trumped-up charges of abusing his office. Although Mangoma was granted bail on Tuesday, the Attorney General’s office used controversial legislation to suspend the bail.

Defence lawyers were challenging this decision on Friday but the judge hearing the case said he will give a decision on the bail issue ‘in due course.’ Asked by Defence lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa what he meant by that, the judge just said, ‘I mean due course’. Mtetwa spent the rest of the day waiting to see what would happen and predictably, nothing did.

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