Harare – “Thank God I am well. Hello, everyone. Unfortunately I have been arrested. I hope we will get through this. This is home and I have committed no crime and I am allowed to come home,” was the message #This Flag pastor Evan Mawarire sent out by a short video clip shortly after he was arrested at Harare International Airport.
He was in handcuffs when he sent out his calm message to Zimbabweans late on Wednesday. The message ripped around the cellphones of Zimbabweans at home and around the world.
He left Zimbabwe six months ago after he was released from prison on a technicality.
But many Zimbabweans were furious and disappointed when Mawarire fled Zimbabwe and went to the US after he was released from prison last year, after charges against him collapsed at the Harare Magistrate’s Court.
The “crime” Mawarire had committed, according to the state, was to use his cellphone to send out social media messages criticising the harsh life most Zimbabweans endure.
He criticised the Zanu- PF government – in inoffensive ways – and sent pictures of himself wrapped in the national flag.
Twice he encouraged people to stay at home and not go to work. The first call coincided with a large one-day strike in Harare by civil servants who had not been paid. His second call was largely ignored.
He was then arrested and taken to filthy cells at Harare Central police station and charged.
#This Flag pastor Evan Mawarire was arrested on his arrival at Harare airport. Picture: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
But when he arrived in the Harare Magistrate’s Court later in the week, the charges had changed and the magistrate had to release him.
Mawarire then fled to Joburg. The charges against him are that he had attempted to overthrow a constitutionally elected government, or "soft" treason, as some Zimbabwe lawyers describe this law.
Days after Mawarire arrived in South Africa, he addressed students around Joburg and continued to use his cellphone to stay in touch, until his pregnant wife and two children arrived, and then he went to the US, where she had her third child.
He protested in New York when President Robert Mugabe arrived to address the UN general assembly.
After his departure from Zimbabwe, there were several demonstrations in Harare and more then 100 people were arrested.
Many were beaten up, and eventually released on bail. Most of those arrested will go on trial next week.
It is not clear yet whether Mawarire was denied refugee status in the US and had to come home, although he always said, after he left, that he would return to Zimbabwe.
He was defended in court last year by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights’ Harrison Nkomo. He went to Harare Central police station to attend to Mawarire, who had not even been through immigration when he was picked up by plainclothes men at the airport.