As I write, Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono is locked up in a high-security prison in Harare, again. Dragged through the courtroom in leg irons, Chin’ono’s crime was using Twitter to criticize Zimbabwe’s government, apparently in breach of his bail conditions. This time he raised questions about a senior government official caught allegedly smuggling gold. Chin’ono was only released in October after another arrest for using social media to criticize the state.
Chin’ono is not the only African journalist who has suffered this kind of violence in recent months. On 10 November, Ethiopian journalist Bekalu Alamrew was arrested for his reporting on the escalating crisis in the country’s Tigray region. Towards the end of October, several Angolan journalists were beaten and detained while covering anti-government protests. In Burundi, journalists from the independent outlet Iwacu marked one year behind bars for the crime of ‘undermining state security’. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, around the world 22 journalists have been killed and 248 imprisoned so far in 2020, another shocking indicator that democracy is under threat across the globe.
