worldrenowned author tsitsi dangarembga was found guilty on september 29 2022 of promoting public violence in her home country of zimbabwe for participating in a largely peaceful antigovernment protest in 2020 that called for reformsshe was fined around 120 and given a sixmonth suspended jail sentencedangarembga and her friend julie barnes were arrested after walking down a street in a suburb of the capital harare holding placards dangarembgas placard read we want better reform our institutions and barnes held one that called for arrested journalists to be freed they were part of a lowkey antigovernment demonstration but were arrested and detained along with several others who were also taken to courtrights groups had criticized the charges against dangarembga an awardwinning writer and filmmaker as part of president emmerson mnangagwas attempts to silence opposition in the longtroubled southern african countrydangarembga 63 said she would appeal her convictioni am not surprised by the verdict because we are in a situation where media freedom is not encouraged she said outside the courthouse so this means the space for freedom of expression is shrinking and is being criminalizedmnangagwa who was instrumental in forcing out zimbabwes autocratic former president robert mugabe in 2017 has been accused of responding with force to any criticism ahead of a presidential election next yearzimbabweans initially welcomed the change of no longer living under mugabes 37year rule but under mnangagwas leadership dozens of people opposition supporters political activists journalists church leaders trade union members and student leaders have been arrested and brought to court on charges that legal experts say amount to harassment and are reminiscent of the mugabe daysdagarembga and barnes argued in court that they were merely exercising their right to freedom of expressionthe judge magistrate barbara mateko disagreed and ruled the pair were intent on provoking violenceclearly they wanted to pass a message it was not peaceful at all mateko said in her judgment they were expressing opinions and it was meant to provokedagarembga won the prestigious peace prize of the german book trade last year her works include the nervous conditions trilogy made up of the bestselling nervous conditions 1988 the book of not 2006 and this mournable body 2018dangarembga was the first black woman to win the prize and was praised by the awards judges as not just one of her countrys most important artists but also a widely audible voice of africa in contemporary literaturethey pointed to her commitment to promoting culture human rights and political change in zimbabwenervous conditions won the commonwealth writers prize in 1989 and is widely acknowledged as one of the finest books by an african author this mournable body was shortlisted for the booker prize for fiction in 2020 a few months after dangarembga was arrestedread more ponniyin selvan facts about the book adapted into movie