Tendai Ruben Mbofana
The recent vitriolic outburst by Information Minister Soda Zhemu, published in the state-controlled Herald, is more than just a standard government rebuttal; it is a chilling manifesto of intolerance and a direct assault on the fundamental principles of transparency and freedom of expression.
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By labeling journalist Blessed Mhlanga’s address at the 18th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy as “malicious” and “false,” the Government of Zimbabwe has once again demonstrated its profound inability to distinguish between the country’s sovereign interests and the narrow, defensive interests of a ruling elite.
To suggest that a journalist’s first-hand account of state-sponsored harassment is a “misrepresentation” is not merely a lie; it is an insult to the intelligence of every Zimbabwean who has witnessed the steady erosion of the rule of law under the so-called Second Republic.
Minister Zhemu’s statement relies on the tired, predictable trope of “foreign interference” to deflect from the harrowing reality of domestic repression.
When a journalist stands before an international forum to recount being thrown into a prison cell for 73 days—simply for conducting an interview with a war veteran who dared to express a dissenting opinion—that is not “peddling a distorted narrative.”
It is a factual testimony of lived trauma.
The Minister’s attempt to characterize this as “scurrying to foreign lands to malign their own nation” is a classic case of gaslighting.
It is the state that maligned itself through the arbitrary arrest and prolonged detention of Mhlanga; the journalist is merely the witness who refused to be silenced.
The most egregious and calculated fabrication in the Minister’s statement is the claim that Mhlanga called for the “restoration of sanctions” against Zimbabwe.
This is not a matter of subjective political interpretation; it is a demonstrable, verifiable falsehood.
A clinical review of the transcript and video of Mhlanga’s address reveals that the word ‘sanctions’ was never uttered as a prescription, a request, or even a subtle suggestion; in fact, the subject was entirely absent from a testimony that focused exclusively on the state’s war against the media.
His testimony was a focused, harrowing account of the state’s misuse of the court system to facilitate his own persecution.
By inventing a “call for sanctions” that never occurred, Zhemu is doing more than just misinforming the public; he is performing a public legal rehearsal.
He is attempting to retroactively force Mhlanga’s words into the narrow, draconian definitions of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Act, specifically the notorious “patriotic clauses” under Section 22A.
Since this law requires proof of a citizen advocating for “sanctions” or “intervention” to be triggered, the Minister has simply manufactured the evidence where none existed.
To threaten a citizen with a law based on words he never spoke is the ultimate hallmark of a regime that has replaced the rule of law with the rule of fabrication.
This explicit invocation of Section 22A as a “legal bulwark” against “foreign-aligned activism” has effectively unmasked the government’s legislative agenda.
These laws were never intended to protect Zimbabwean sovereignty from external threats; they were designed to serve as a legal muzzle for internal critics.
When the state begins to define “patriotism” as absolute silence in the face of injustice, then the law itself has become a tool of subversion against the people it is meant to protect.
To threaten a citizen with criminal prosecution for speaking at a human rights summit is to admit that the “engagement and re-engagement” agenda is a hollow facade—a performance for the international community that crumbles the moment a Zimbabwean tells the truth about what is happening behind the curtain.
If the government truly wants to engage with the world, it must first learn to engage with its own citizens without reaching for the handcuffs.
A stark contrast can be found in how healthy democracies respond to such international scrutiny.
In 2020, following the tragic killing of George Floyd, his brother Philonise Floyd addressed the very same Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy to testify on police brutality and systemic racism in the United States.
Rather than branding him a ‘traitor’ or accusing him of ‘maligning’ the nation, the American government acknowledged the gravity of the issues raised.
In a functioning democracy, a citizen’s plea for justice on a global platform is not viewed as an act of hostility, but as a legitimate exercise of the right to petition for redress—a far cry from the paranoid and vitriolic response we are seeing from the Zimbabwean state today.
Furthermore, the Minister’s argument that Mhlanga’s address “undermines recent diplomatic and economic progress” is a dangerous conflation of human rights and economic management.
The government continues to use the issue of sanctions as a convenient scapegoat for its own systemic failures and corruption.
By claiming that Mhlanga “weaponized” his platform to advocate for measures that “stifle our economy,” the Minister is attempting to turn the suffering Zimbabwean public against one of its most courageous truth-tellers.
Let us be clear: the Zimbabwean economy is not being stifled by journalists speaking in Geneva.
It is being stifled by a lack of accountability, the looting of natural resources, and a judicial system that prioritizes the protection of the powerful over the rights of the poor.
To blame a journalist for the country’s economic woes is an act of political cowardice that seeks to outsource blame for internal mismanagement to the victims of that very mismanagement.
This “sanctions-baiting” is a tired tactic intended to distract from the reality that the greatest “sanctions” on the Zimbabwean people are the corruption and incompetence of those who claim to lead them.
The Minister speaks of “undeniable diplomatic gains,” yet the very nature of his statement proves that the “Second Republic” remains trapped in the paranoid mindset of the past.
If the government were truly confident in its progress, it would not fear the words of a single journalist.
A robust democracy does not need a “legal bulwark” to protect its reputation; its reputation is protected by the strength of its institutions, the freedom of its press, and the dignity of its citizens.
The fact that the government feels the need to threaten Mhlanga with the “patriotic act” suggests that they know their narrative of “reform” cannot withstand the scrutiny of a factual, first-hand account.
True sovereignty resides in the people, not in the administration’s ability to suppress the voices of those who represent the people.
The Minister’s assertion that “the days of impunity for those who malign their own nation are firmly in the past” is perhaps the most ironic statement in the entire report.
Impunity in Zimbabwe does not belong to the activists or the journalists; it belongs to the connected individuals who loot national resources with no consequence, the officials who bypass tender procedures to enrich themselves, and the politicians who use state institutions as private tools of intimidation.
When Blessed Mhlanga was jailed for over two months, the impunity was not his—it belonged to the system that kept him there without a shred of legal justification.
By turning the word “impunity” against its victims, the government is attempting to rewrite the dictionary of Zimbabwean justice.
We must also critique the role of state media in this orchestration.
The Herald’s reportage functions not as a source of information, but as a bulletin for state intimidation.
By publishing the Minister’s threats without providing a single line of context regarding Mhlanga’s actual testimony or the horrific conditions of his 73-day detention, the publication has abandoned the most basic tenets of journalism.
It has become a collaborator in the state’s war on truth.
As a journalist with over 30 years in this industry, I find it tragic that our national broadsheet has been reduced to a platform for issuing threats against its own professional colleagues.
The government’s obsession with “re-engagement” while simultaneously clamping down on dissent is a paradox that the international community is beginning to see through.
You cannot claim to be “open for business” while remaining “resolutely closed” to the human rights of your own people.
Capital flows where there is stability, and stability is built on the rule of law—not on the rule of threats.
When Minister Zhemu says that Zimbabwe is “resolutely closed” to the forces of regression, he is inadvertently describing his own administration’s policies.
To criminalize a journalist’s testimony is the very definition of regression.
In conclusion, the threats against Blessed Mhlanga are threats against every Zimbabwean who believes in social justice, transparency, and the right to hold power to account.
The “patriotic act” is not a shield for the nation; it is a cage for the truth.
If the government truly wants to protect Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and reputation, it should start by respecting the constitutional rights of its citizens.
It should stop jailing journalists for doing their jobs and start addressing the legitimate grievances raised at forums like the Geneva Summit.
Patriotism is not the blind defense of a government’s mistakes; it is the courageous act of demanding that one’s country lives up to its highest ideals.
Blessed Mhlanga did not malign Zimbabwe; he spoke for a Zimbabwe that deserves better than a government that governs by fear and fabricates charges to silence dissent.
No amount of legislative threats or state-media vitriol can change the fact that the truth, once spoken, cannot be un-heard.
The government may have the “legal bulwark” of the patriotic clauses, but the people have the enduring power of the truth, and in the long arc of history, it is the truth that will have the final word.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
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