The greatest challenge to Zimbabwe’s aging, autocratic President Robert Mugabe in years started with a viral video.
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He subsequently left Zimbabwe for South Africa, where he told the BBC on Thursday that he was more scared of his daughters’ criticism of inaction than what the state could do to him if he returned.
“They are not part of us”.
“I would be lying to you if I said I’m not concerned [about my safety]”, Mawarire said.
“I don’t know whether they are serving God. we spell God double G.O.D, they spell God in reverse”, he said to cheers from the crowd.
In May, Mawarire urged people to carry the national flag with them everywhere they went for a week. Mugabe told them to leave Zimbabwe if they are unhappy with conditions at home. “No amount of intimidation will stop us”, Chidziva said. Mr Mugabe relies heavily on the military to remain in power.
Political infighting has been exacerbated by an economic crisis, widely blamed on mismanagement and, more recently, the effects of a region-wide drought.
Salaries for civil servants and soldiers have been delayed again in July, and further protests are planned in the capital on Saturday and Monday.
The #ThisFlag movement has been propelled by a generation of social media-savvy Zimbabweans who organized protest actions on messaging and web apps, analysts say.
He was arrested last Tuesday on charges of inciting violence and disturbing the peace, but the state later sought to alter the charges to subversion.
Other government supporters also praised Mugabe’s 36-year rule. “We will say no, forever no”, he thundered. “Whatever the case, you and I have stood to build Zimbabwe”.
“The Mawarires, I don’t even know him”.
By nightfall, Mawarire walked free.
The face of the opposition movement is Evan Mawarire, a 39-year-old pastor and political activist who was arrested and charged with plans to overthrow the president on July 12. “We call upon the government to immediately investigate and prosecute law enforcement agents (the Zimbabwe Republic Police) that are alleged to have brutalised people”, the churchmen said in a statement. “If you touch one of us, you are touching all of us”.
The 92-year-old president – the country’s only ruler since independence from Britain – is looking increasingly frail and struggling to walk up stairs in public, though he has said he wants to live to 100, and denies local media reports that he has prostate cancer.
Pastor Evan Mawarire was accused of being sponsored by foreign countries who wanted to topple Mugabe from power and of being a false preacher.
“Pastors don’t rule the country”.
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Most Zimbabweans that are working outside the country, Mawarire said, were exhausted of being humiliated and want to return to their motherland.
