ZIMBABWE opposition party Citizens Coalition for Change spokesperson Fadzai Mahere has been convicted after she was found guilty of communicating falsehoods prejudicial to the state and law enforcement.
Mahere was convicted in a case in which she tweeted that the Zimbabwe Republic Police had beaten a woman with a baby strapped on her back using a button stick, subsequently hitting the baby on the head resulting in the its baby back in 2020.

In her initial trial Mahere through her legal team tried to exonerate herself by submitting that her
tweet came after she saw a video of a motionless child with the crowd shouting that the police had killed an infant. However, in his judgement Harare regional magistrate Mr Taurai Manuwere dismissed
Mahere’s claims as reckless and unreasonable.
Mr Manuwere also submitted that Mahere as an Advocate with many years of experience in the legal fraternity was supposed to verify facts before communicating on Twitter.

The court also ruled that Mahere’s utterances that violence is in the DNA of the ZRP soiled and undermined its good name, thereby portraying the police force as full of rogue police officers.
CCC has condemned the conviction saying it was a coordinated attack against their members ahead of this year’s elections. They claimed she was being politically persecuted before calling for all citizens to speak up and demand the independence of the judicial institutions.