CCC Vice President and spokeswoman, Fadzayi Mahere has revealed that she survived an armed robbery at her home.
Speaking at the UN, Mahere revealed that her car was smashed four times due to her work as the spokeswoman of the CCC.
Please read the full speech below:
Thank you. Hello. Two years ago, I woke up in a maximum security prison in Zimbabwe. With no toilet, no water. And no underwear.
Inmates ate watery porridge with our hands because we were not permitted spoons. Before lights off, we had to line line up in queues for roll call Groups A, B, C or D. D was for dangerous. And even though the other women there had committed murder, armed robbery and infanticide. I was put in the dangerous group, all because of a tweet. So it might surprise you.
But after repeated arrests and wrongful imprisonment, I’ve come here today to the UN optimistic because the crackdown now taking place in Zimbabwe is a sign that we are winning.
Even within his own party. Mr. Mnangagwa is weak. Their own intelligence tells them that the opposition will win the selection in the coming summer.
I’m the national spokesperson for the citizens Coalition for Change, the country’s main opposition party because we dare to challenge the system. I’ve been arrested repeatedly.
My car has been smashed four times. I survived an armed robbery on my house. And then in 2021 local police slammed into a bus and hurt a baby. I remember seeing a video of the mother carrying a pale limp baby crying, grabbing the police officer by the collar. Crying he killed my baby. I tweeted against this egregious act of police brutality. I said this is rogue policing. It’s a disproportionate and unconstitutional use of force.
No baby should die because of police brutality. And by the time I tweeted about it, it had already gone viral. But they arrested me anyway. And that’s how I ended up in the country’s maximum security prison. I was charged with communicating falsehoods prejudicial to the state and I learned firsthand how the government would manipulate the law for their own gain.
The magistrates and prosecutors had no regard whatsoever for my fair trial rights. They refused to admit the baby of the mother and the dead baby. They called me a liar. They said the baby wasn’t dead. I faced a potential 20 year prison sentence because of my tweets. I’m free for now. But it is in Bob way. Nobody is truly yet free. And so I’m here today to let the world know that Zimbabwe is currently reeling under a dictatorship much worse than Robert Mugabe.
Almost half the population live under extreme poverty because those in power would rather loot and persecute than lead. But government’s war against freedom and its weaponization of the law against myself and other government critics, journalists and civic society members including Job Sikhala And Jacob Ngarivhume, who are still in wrongful detention are calculated to send a chilling message to the rest of society.
We’re watching you even on Twitter, and this is what you get punishment for participating in opposition politics. Now I wouldn’t risk my life and freedom. If I didn’t sincerely believe that change is possible. Courage doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid. It means that you act in spite of your fear, because you believe in a greater cause. Am I choose courage?
This summer Zimbabweans go to the ballot box with one simple mission to win Zimbabwe for change, to install ethical competent leaders who believe in freedom, dignity, and prosperity for the many. And not just the few. That says difficult, but we have to emancipate the jewel of Africa. From the imprisonment of its current dictatorship. Hope and action are the sustenance for those who change the world. Thank you
