THE Chichi Dangarebgaa successful one author and director from the Zimbabwewas acquitted today of her charge “incitement to violence”which had been recited to her because he was silently protesting on the streets of Harare, holding a placard, during a curfew in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020.

The Court of Appeal judges overturned the trial court’s decision, noting that they would issue their reasoning later.

“No crime was committed,” her attorney, Harrison Nkomo, summed up. “The judges explained that he did not commit any crime,” he stressed.

Last September Chichi Dangarebga was sentenced to six months in prison. She was arrested at the end of July 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, while she was marching with a journalist friend and a few other people, in a suburb of Harare. She was holding a placard with the slogan: “We want something better.” To reform our institutions”.

According to the indictment, he incited violence and demonstrated “without authorization.” She however insisted that she did not speak to anyone during the march, not even to the press, while no incident was caused in this demonstration.

Leaving court, the author, a respected figure in her country’s feminist movement, denounced the “increasing restriction and criminalization” of freedom of expression in Zimbabwe, saying Zimbabweans are now treated as “citizens” rather than ” citizens”.

Chichi Dangarebga rose to prominence in the late 1980s with her first, autobiographical novel, Nervous Conditions.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who succeeded Robert Mugabe in 2017 after a coup, is often accused by rights groups of silencing dissidents, mainly through arbitrary arrests. Presidential elections are due to be held in August, but the exact date has not yet been announced.