Harare (AFP) – Popular Zimbabwean pastor Evan Mawarire, one of the organisers of the largest protests in years against President Robert Mugabe, was arrested Tuesday and charged with inciting public violence, his lawyer said.
A national “shutdown” protest last week closed many businesses, shops and schools, with public transport and some government departments and courts also ceasing to function.
The strike on Wednesday followed protests triggered by an outbreak of demonstrations on the outskirts of Harare over police accused of using road blocks to extort cash from motorists.
Further shutdowns are planned on Wednesday and Thursday in a surge of public anger over the country’s worsening economic crisis and opposition to the authoritarian regime of Mugabe, 92.
Banks have run short of cash, government salaries have been delayed and some imports banned at a time when the country has also suffered a severe drought that has left millions hungry.
“(Mawarire) has been charged with inciting public violence,” his lawyer Harrison Nkomo told AFP after the Baptist pastor reported to a police station in central Harare where he had been summoned for questioning.
Mawarire, who had no previous record as an activist, shot to fame in April after he posted a video of himself on Facebook venting against state corruption and the government’s failure to provide basic services.
The video, in which Mawarire was wearing a Zimbabwean flag, spawned the ThisFlag hashtag movement which has become a rallying call for the protests.
The demonstrations have revealed the long-bubbling frustration normally kept under strict control by Mugabe’s ruthless security forces in a country where 90 percent of the population are not in formal jobs.
Footage on the internet has shown police beating protesters with sticks.
– More protests planned –
“No violence, citizens,” Mawarire said in a video message before his arrest.
“Whenever we protest: no violence, so we are pushing ahead Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 July.
“We are pushing for a ‘stay-away’ (shutdown) because there is nothing else we can do for the government to listen to us.”
Zimbabwe, which abandoned its own currency in favour of US dollars in 2009 to end hyperinflation, spends more than 80 percent of its revenue on state workers’ wages and is rated among the most corrupt nations worldwide.
The government has accused western embassies of backing the street protests and national work boycotts.
Information Minister Christopher Mushowe also warned Sunday that the authorities were tracking “all those who are abusing the social media to cause unrest”.
The government said that anyone sharing “subversive” material would be arrested.
Mugabe has blamed the money shortage on sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the US and European Union — though the restrictions only target a small number of individuals close to the president.
“These are troubles for these days only,” Mugabe told ruling ZANU-PF party supporters on Friday evening.
“It will not continue like this because we do not want the doctors, nurses and teachers to go on strike.”
The president still appears regularly in public walking unaided and delivers long, fiery speeches, but he has shown increasing signs of ill health.
He has vowed to stand again as president in elections due in 2018, and named no successor.
“Efforts to bring about political change must eventually rely on formal political parties, which are currently disunited and ineffective,” said Charles Laurie of risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft.
“Zimbabwean voters may find themselves currently united in an effort to usher in the post-Mugabe era, however, a successful political transition will require clear, unifying leadership.”
Zimbabwe has suffered years of economic decline, allegedly rigged elections and mass emigration since Mugabe took power in 1980, when the country won independence from Britain.
Police were not immediately available to comment on Mawarire’s arrest.
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