Zimbabwe’s government warned protesters on Tuesday they would face the “full wrath of the law” if they heeded Mawarire’s call, after his #ThisFlag movement organised the biggest anti-government demonstrations in a decade last week.
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Mawarire, a father of two and pastor of the New Generation Church in Harare, had charges of trying to overthrow the government of President Robert Mugabe dropped against him on Wednesday in a ruling welcomed by supporters in and outside Zimbabwe.
Crowds swelled on Wednesday outside the Harare Magistrates’ Court where they were singing and praying ahead of Mawarire’s expected bail hearing in the afternoon.
In the event, Mr Mawarire was represented by Harrison Nkomo, who pointed out that the charges before the court were different from those put to his client when he was arrested on Tuesday. The country has been in chronic economic hardship, and Mugabe has previously used his security forces to crack down on public shows of dissent.
On Wednesday July 6, business came to a halt in all major cities in response to a #ShutDownZimbabwe2016 call on social media. “It really pains me that I saw this government taking power in 1980 and today we’re free from white rule, but they’re the ones who broke my bones”, he told Al Jazeera.
Zimbabweans’ use of the Internet in recent weeks to mobilize street protests have bypassed traditional opposition parties.
“It will not continue like this because we do not want the doctors, nurses and teachers to go on strike”.
Ignatius Chombo, told Zimbabwe’s state-owned Sunday Mail that the country’s intelligence gathered that U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas and France Ambassador Laurent Delahousse “were working through dodgy groups and leveraging on social media to foment civil disobedience and ultimately destabilize Zimbabwe”.
The president still appears regularly in public walking unaided and delivers long, fiery speeches, but he has shown increasing signs of ill health.
He said the campaign was serious about wanting change.
The video, which urges Zimbabweans to rally around the national flag and speak out against the country’s worsening economic crisis, went viral, spawning an online campaign that has coalesced into the biggest uprising against Mugabe’s rule in almost a decade.
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Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said she had no details on the issue and could not immediately comment.
