Inside a cramped cell in Zimbabwe’s notorious Chikurubi prison in January last year, a group of women took turns to speak.
Among them was Fadzayi Mahere, one of the country’s most prominent young opposition leaders.
Sitting on the cold, urine-stained concrete floor, she listened as her fellow prisoners – many wearing the ill-fitting yellow tunics of convicted criminals – shared the reasons for their imprisonment.
One by one, they listed violent attacks, armed robberies, and murders.
Then it was Mahere’s turn. “I tweeted,” she said, to the laughter of her teammates.
A spokesman for the country’s main opposition party, then known as the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Mahere spent seven nights in pre-trial detention before being released on bail.
She was told she had been accused of communicating falsehoods relating to several of her posts on social media, but only received an official charge sheet almost 15 months later.
This was not Mahere’s first time in custody, but it was the longest, and the most difficult.
Held in a series of overcrowded, poorly ventilated and unsanitary cells – where mosquitoes thrived and fleas clung to blood-soaked blankets – she also contracted COVID during her incarceration.
“There is a culture of stripping your dignity,” said Mahere, 36, explaining how prisoners at Chikurubi are forced to kneel in front of wardens when speaking to them and are forbidden to wear a bra, or use a spoon when eating porridge .
“You’ve got all these women lapping porridge out of their fingers,” she adds as we speak more than a year after her incarceration, her gorgeous dress and perfectly manicured nails a stark contrast to the experience he describes.
Cape Colony, a British colony founded in 1806 in what is now South Africa. With the formation of the Union of South Africa (1910), the colony became the Cape of Good Hope province (also known as the Cape Province).
Is Zimbabwe a poor country?
Seventy-two percent of Zimbabweans live below the national poverty line, making it the 22nd poorest country in the world.
Who Built Great Zimbabwe and why?
Begun during the eleventh century AD by ancestors of the Bantu-speaking Shona, Great Zimbabwe was built and expanded over more than 300 years in a local style that eschewed straightness for flowing curves.
Who founded Great Zimbabwe? Scientific research has proven that Great Zimbabwe was founded in the 11th century on a site that was sparsely inhabited in prehistoric times, by an Iron Age Bantu population, the Shona. This may interest you : 10 most compelling speeches in video games.
Why did they build Great Zimbabwe?
Great Zimbabwe is believed to have served as a royal palace for the local queen. As such, it would have been used as a seat of political power. See the article : Review of Chinese Words for ‘America’ Over Time. Among the most prominent features of the building were its walls, some of which were eleven meters high. They were built without mortar (dry stone).
What is Robert Mugabe best known for?
After dominating Zimbabwean politics for almost four decades, Mugabe was a controversial figure. Read also : The “Big Resignations” come to health jobs in Idaho. He was hailed as a revolutionary hero of the African liberation struggle who helped liberate Zimbabwe from British colonialism, imperialism, and white minority rule.
