Former MDC Alliance principal Jacob Ngarivhume was on Friday sentenced to four years in jail following his conviction the previous day of public violence incitement charges.
The charges emanated from a July 2020 tweet in which Ngarivhume, who is also Transform Zimbabwe leader, called for a national shutdown in protest over poor leadership by the ZANU PF-led government.
Ngarivhume was convicted by Harare magistrate Feresi Chakanyuka after a full trial that lasted almost three years.
He was on Friday sentenced to 48 months imprisonment, with 12 months conditionally set aside. This means he will serve an effective three years in jail.
During the trial, Ngarivhume denied the accusations arguing that the Twitter handle allegedly used as the bases of his prosecution did not belong to him.
Even after his conviction on Thursday, Ngarivhume still maintained his innocence. He said:
It’s unfortunate that they chose to convict me on an offence I did not commit.
It is like they are punishing me for being a politician. The State failed to prove that I own the alleged Twitter account and I told them it was not mine.
I do own a Twitter handle and I directed them to it, but they insisted that it was me without proof.
Outspoken journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, who was also arrested in 2020 for alleged incitement to public violence but was acquitted by the High Court, said the Government has scored an own goal in convicting Ngarivhume. Said Chin’ono:
Citizens remain calm. The regime is tying itself in knots and exposing itself to the world for what it is.
It might not care, but with time you will realize why this pain is necessary to achieve freedom.
I lived in prison with Jacob Ngarivhume, he will cope, and he was prepared for this the same way Job Sikhala is prepared for convictions.
What scares us is not prisons, weak people are scared of prisons.
What scares us is our determination to achieve freedom for all, and freedom will be achieved!
You can jail people, but you can never jail an idea!
Jailing someone because they called for a demonstration against corruption gives the answer that the world has been waiting for.
We are under a brutal regime that survives through corruption, so anyone who threatens its corrupt ways becomes an enemy and is thrown in prison.
Mandela stayed in prison for 27 years, and Mugabe stayed there for 11 years, prison doesn’t scare us.
It shows how the regime has run out of ideas, even Mugabe at his worst never behaves in this laughable manner.
So citizens remain calm, time and the world is on your side.
Incitement to public violence is defined as the act of urging, encouraging, or advocating for the use of violence by members of the public against other individuals or groups. The offense carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The Government has been accused of using the charge of incitement to public violence to suppress dissent and opposition.
Several political activists, journalists, and other individuals who speak out against ZANU PF or its policies have been arrested and charged with incitement to public violence.
More: Pindula News
Zanu pf is a terrorist organisation. They continue to terrorise Citizens. Vhuka Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 Vhuka. JOB and now JACOB. The junta regime gold Mafia is in panic mode.
Ngarivhume and Chingono, are fighting personal wars with ZANU PF. No one has asked them to mobilize for a demonstration against ZANU PF Government. People are acutely aware of the damage the mindless demonstration that have occurred in the past which included arson and looting. No government, unless it is a weak one, can tolerate that. What does Ngarivhume produce for the nation? What does Chinono produce for the nation? How are Hopewell’s so called award winning production awards benefit the national materially. Its a misplaced cause. Dzamara, instead of looking for his family spent hours in the park demonstrating against Mugabe. Who did he think was looking after his family. Sakhala is literally rotting in prison and his children arfe living on handout from , so called well wishers (some of the people who want him to remain there). What was he doing leading violent agitation against innocent people in Manyame, People should not fool themselves that they have more interest in the country than others. If government is getting it wrong, the logical thing is to seek the to correct the errors of their way, not to cause more damage.
Utter rubbish
So you cannot criticise the gvt
Job and dzamara were not selfish like you they were fighting for our freedom
From this oppressive regime.were zanu not doing against the colonilists
It is now becoming clear why Hopewell Chin’ono was saying that CCC was dead as a ‘dodo’. I no longer trust Chin’ono because he was criticising CCC and Chamisa with a forked tongue. He was fighting in Zanu-PF corner, influencing Chamisa to call for demonstrations from his supporters, thus playing into Zanu-PF plan to arrest and charge him like what they did to Jacob Ngarivhume. Chamisa has always stated that he and his leadership are always a step ahead of Zanu-PF which is true. Double agents like Chin’ono will become irrelevant in no time.
My advice to Chin’ono is “don’t think you are more intelligent than other people for the simple that you have been praised in the past as a journalist of international repute”.