Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere plans to appeal her conviction and sentence for communicating falsehoods prejudicial to the state following a two-year trial.
Mahere was on Wednesday ordered to pay a US$500 fine by Harare magistrate Taurai Manuwere or spend three months in jail.
Her lawyer David Drury told ZimLive that the appeal process will start as soon as they obtain a transcript of the judgment. Said Drury:
That process will be done in terms of the time limits provided by the rules and pragmatically, we await a transcript of the judgment which has been urgently requested but is not available today.
As soon as the appeal notice and grounds are settled and served, this will be shared given that the area of law is important, speaking as it does to freedom of expression which is a recognised constitutional right not only domestically but also in terms of international customary law instruments which ought to resonate and apply to our Law.
Mahere was arrested in January 2021 for reposting on her Twitter handle, a video of a mother who was filmed tussling a uniformed police officer along Harare’s Second Street.
The unidentified woman was clinging to the police officer while holding a motionless baby with her other hand.
She was claiming that the cop had fatally struck her baby with his baton.
The police officer had been enforcing COVID-19 restrictions against pirate taxis at an illegal bus stop in Harare.
It later turned out that the child was not dead.
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