OPublic incitement to violence, breach of the peace and bigotry: These are the allegations for which Tsitsi Dangarembga, the 2021 Peace Prize winner, has to answer in court in her homeland of Zimbabwe together with her co-defendant Julie Barnes. A peace prize winner as a peace breaker? The fact that led to these allegations, which the two defendants did not deny, was that in the summer of 2020 they had carried posters critical of the government on the side of the road in Harare. Not only did you, as the profile of the Peace Prize states, “contribute to the realization of the idea of peace in literature, science or art”, but you also took to the streets with two posters.
The writer and filmmaker has had to appear in court twenty-seven times since then. This Monday, once again, could have been the last date: the presiding judge had set this day to announce the decision as to whether the proceedings should be discontinued at the request of the defense. That would have been a rather inconspicuous end to the trial, during which even one of the three police officers who arrested Dangarembga and Barnes two years ago testified that the two accused were merely exercising their basic rights enshrined in Zimbabwe’s constitution.
But the trial appears to be designed to intimidate: not just the two accused, but all members of the opposition in Zimbabwe, who are once again being shown here that neither an open willingness to live in peace nor an international reputation protect them from such treatment.
She is under medical treatment
When Tsitsi Dangarembga, who is currently receiving medical treatment in Germany, failed to appear in court, the judge not only postponed the pronouncement until August 4, but also issued an arrest warrant for the absentee.
Even if, as the judge promised, it could be lifted as soon as the writer submitted a medical certificate after her return to Zimbabwe: In her home country, Tsitsi Dangarembga, who plans to fly back to Harare in the middle of next month, is threatened with jail. It doesn’t take much imagination to get the impression that the court could also aim to force the unwelcome citizen into exile. It would then be easy to portray her as a traitor in her home country. Tsitsi Dangarembga first learned German at the age of twelve and studied film directing at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin. Her husband Olaf Koschke, with whom she lives in Harare, is German.
Tsitsi Dangarembga spoke about her country at the Lit:Potsdam festival on Sunday evening. Many people in Zimbabwe call their people peaceful, she said. After the experiences of violence in her country, it was simply an impossibility for the writer. On Monday, members of the opposition in Zimbabwe recalled the events of mid-2008 using the hashtag #Remembering27June: A few days earlier, Morgan Tsvangirai, who ran against dictator Robert Mugabe in the presidential elections and had won the most votes in the first ballot, had submitted his candidacy under massive pressure withdrawn. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands voted for him. Mugabe deployed soldiers against the demonstrators. The current president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was responsible for conducting the election at the time. At the end of 2017 he succeeded Mugabe as leader of the governing party, and in 2018 he became president. That’s not the only thing he inherited from his predecessor.
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