By Cde Nhamo Taneta
Zimbabwe Independent editor Faith Zaba was granted US$200 bail on Friday, 4 July, by Harare magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe, after spending three nights in remand prison.
Her crime was letting satire speak truths power fears to hear.
She was arrested over a Muckraker column published last Friday that mocked Zimbabwe’s grand takeover of the SADC chairmanship.
The piece, sharp and unfiltered, labelled the regional bloc a “trade union of dictators” and fired a few well-aimed jabs at President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Satire was never meant to end in shackles.
Yet here we are — wit has now been classified as a national threat.
Zaba first appeared in court on Tuesday.
The State, following its usual script, asked for more time to verify her medical history.
Satire offends, apparently, sneezing without clearance is unforgivable.
This is not an isolated misfire.
It’s a chapter in a long-running operation to suffocate the last breath of democratic space.
They came for the opposition, targeting Job Sikhala, Jacob Ngarivhume, Jameson Timba, and 74 CCC activists, filling the prisons with dissent.
They disfigured the 2023 election into a patriotic performance.
They opened the public purse for tenderpreneurs with long pockets and short delivery records.
Now, with almost every critical institution captured or cowed, the regime is coming for the media — the last sector still trying to ask questions louder than a whisper.
Zaba’s case follows a tested formula used against Hopewell Chin’ono, Blessed Mhlanga, and others: detain without conviction, harass without shame, delay until fatigue replaces resistance.
The law is no longer about justice.
It’s a tool of punishment, stretched and twisted until due process becomes a performance.
Freedom of expression now exists only in speeches at government events.
Press freedom comes with terms, conditions, and the occasional prison mattress.
Journalists like Rueben Barwe who toe the propaganda line are handed keys to SUVs.
Journalists who dig through corruption are handed prison uniforms.
Zaba’s arrest is more than personal.
It is a message written in bold, underlined by fear, and delivered through handcuffs.
This is a regime that no longer pretends to tolerate dissent.
Satire has become subversion.
Facts are now felonies. Laughter carries a custodial sentence.
This is no longer about one article.
It’s about a regime determined to silence anything it cannot control — even a column armed only with irony.
In Zimbabwe today, laughter aimed at power is treasonous.
