Zimbabwean Writer Cleared of Anti-Government Protest Charges

Zimbabwean writer and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga has been acquitted by the country's High Court of staging an anti-government protest in 2020, for which she had initially received a six-month suspended jail sentence and a fine. Dangarembga, a fierce critic of President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government, was found guilty in 2022 by a lower court of participating in a public gathering with intent to incite public violence while breaking COVID-19 protocols. The High Court judges did not immediately give reasons for the acquittal.