Amnesty International has described the conviction of former Member of Parliament Job Sikhala for “publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the state” as a travesty of justice.
Harare regional magistrate Feresi Chakanyuka on Thursday handed Sikhala a nine-month wholly suspended sentence on the condition he does not commit a similar offence in the next five years.
She also fined Sikhala US$500, the failure of which he will spend two months in prison.
Responding to Sikhala’s conviction and sentencing, Khanyo Farisè, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, said:
The conviction of Job Sikhala is a travesty of justice as it is based on a law that no longer exists in Zimbabwe and has been used to silence peaceful dissent.
The legal provision that was applied to convict Sikhala was declared void by the Constitutional Court in 2014. The High Court confirmed this in another case in 2021.
Sikhala’s conviction and sentencing, which comes barely three weeks after his release from 595 days in pretrial detention, highlights the escalating repression and shrinking space for exercising the rights to freedom of expression and association in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwean authorities must quash the conviction and sentence and stop weaponizing the criminal justice system to target and harass political opponents and individuals exercising their right to freedom of expression both online and offline.
Authorities must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the human rights of everyone in the country.
Sikhala was arrested on 11 January 2021 and another opposition activist, Fadzayi Mahere, had been arrested three days earlier (08 January), for “publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the state”.
The charges were related to a viral video of a woman tussling with a police officer while holding a motionless baby in her hands in January 2021.
Mahere was arrested and detained for seven days before being granted bail. She was later convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of US$500.
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