By Alex Bell
The case against a Bulawayo man, accused of trying to overthrow the Robert Mugabe regime using social media site Facebook, has been thrown out of court, in what commentators have said is a victory for online activism in Zimbabwe.
Vikas Mavhudzi was on Tuesday cleared of all the charges, after the state failed to gather any evidence against him. Mavhudzi’s shock arrest in February came after he posted a message of support on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Facebook page. The two line message referred to the civic uprisings seen in Egypt earlier this year, which led to the fall of the Hosni Mubarak administration there.
The message said: “I am overwhelmed, don’t know what to say Mr PM. What happened in Egypt is sending shockwaves to all dictators around the world. No weapon but unity of purpose. Worth emulating, hey.”
Mavhudzi was then arrested over this message and charged with encouraging Tsvangirai to take over the government by ‘unconstitutional’ means or ‘usurping’ the functions of the government.
But on Tuesday Bulawayo magistrate Rose Dube granted an application by Mavhudzi’s lawyer, Lizwe Jamela of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), to have his client removed from remand. Jamela successfully argued that there was no evidence warranting the matter to go for trial since the police conceded that they had failed to access the message which formed the basis of the charge.
The magistrate noted that it was appropriate to have the accused removed from remand and the charges withdrawn if the evidence forming the basis of the alleged criminal offence could not be furnished.
SW Radio Africa’s correspondent Lance Guma, who is a regular on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, said such a case was just an attempt by the regime to “scare people.” He explained that ZANU PF has been left trembling by the fall of oppressive governments in North Africa after public protests that were organised and highly publicised used the social networking sites.
“This arrest coincided with the Arab Spring that we saw in North Africa, which threw the regime into panic. So Mavhudzi’s arrest was meant to send a message to people that the use of these sites would not be tolerated,” Lance explained.
He also said that, for a time, this tactic had the desired effect.
“This arrest coincided with our (SW Radio Africa’s) exposure of the controversial CIO list, and you could see that people were not commenting on Facebook as much as they would have before the arrest,” Lance said.
But he added that this has now changed with the crumbling of the state’s case against Mavhudzi.
“Events in North Africa have proved that no matter how oppressive the regime, people power always wins at the end of the day,” Lance said.
He added: “People tend to look at these governments as being invincible. But Facebook and Twitter are becoming powerful platforms for real change in the hands of the people.” SW Radio Africa
