Zimbabwe judge tosses out president 'nude' picture case
Magistrate Takudzwa Gwazemba tossed out the charges on Tuesday, saying the state had failed to prosecute them after more than a year.
A Zimbabwean judge has thrown out a case against a couple who shared a photoshopped nude photo of the country's president on a WhatsApp group, their lawyer said Wednesday.
Sarudzayi Ambiri Jani, 39, and Remember Ncube, 35, were arrested in June 2020 for sharing the image on a neighbourhood group in the southern border town of Beitbridge.
Prosecutors said the picture showed President Mnangagwa naked.
Beitbridge magistrate Takudzwa Gwazemba stopped the case against the couple on Tuesday, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), which represented them said.
“Magistrate Gwazemba recently removed (Ms) Jani and (Mr) Ncube from remand as the state failed to put them on trial 17 months after they were arrested,” ZLHR said in a statement.
The couple had been charged with undermining the authority of the president.
Zimbabwe has over the years used the insult law to charge people that criticise the country’s leader.
The insult law was used routinely during the rein of the late Robert Mugabe, who was toppled by the military in 2017.
President Mnangagwa, who took over from Mr Mugabe, promised to scrap some of the laws that made Zimbabwe notorious for clamping down on freedom of speech.
Critics, however, say the 79 year-old ruler is resorting to using the same laws to crush dissent, which is growing over his failure to deliver on promises to stop the economic decline and usher in political reforms.
Last month, prosecutors in Harare were forced to withdraw charges against a police officer who had been arrested over a year ago for allegedly circulating a message on a WhatsApp group for police officers calling for the president’s resignation.
The ZLHR says it is handling tens of similar cases where people are charged for allegedly circulating messages denigrating the president.
In 2013, Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court ruled that the insult laws were unconstitutional, but the government is yet to scrap them off the country’s statute books.
At the time the country’s apex court said prosecutors must not be overzealous about charging people that comment about the president “in drinking halls and other social places.”
