Jailed Jacob Ngarivhume Refuses To Be Silenced
Jailed Transform Zimbabwe (TZ) leader Jacob Ngarivhume says his incarceration for incitement to public violence will not dissuade him from speaking out against corruption.
In late April this year, Ngarivhume, a former MDC Alliance principal, was sentenced to 48 months imprisonment, with 12 months conditionally set aside.
The charges emanated from a July 2020 tweet in which he called for a national shutdown in protest over poor leadership by the ZANU PF-led government.
In a letter from Harare Central Prison where he is serving the sentence, Ngarivhume urged Zimbabweans to register to vote and ensure that they vote against “oppressors”. He wrote:
I would like to thank you all for your support following my unjust incarceration. We all know that the oppressor has one language injustice, bad faith, oppression and persecution.
By sending us to the worst prisons of the world he believes that he can silence us. He thinks that because of the gullible conditions we are living under we will quit.
No! That will never happen. We, born to freedom and justice, believing in the same, would rather die in these squalid prisons on our feet than live on our knees bowing to oppression and injustice.
Zimbabwe is our heritage and we have no other. I insist on my innocence. To call for anticorruption protests is no crime. And is provided for in the constitution of the country.
I have been placed in the worst part of the prison dormitories where I am discriminated against every day.
I am the only prisoner who has to see visitors in the sight and hearing of several prison security details.
As I am talking to my visitors the security details come so close behind me that it even embarrasses them. No other prisoner is treated like that.
I have learnt to live with that. I can last all the way to the end. All I need are your prayers so that God keeps me safe while I am here. The oppressor has one step too close to me.
Meanwhile, I urge you all to register to vote. Register in your numbers and go vote when the dates are announced soon.
Meanwhile, ZEC has embarked on voter inspection. Please let us all go and inspect the voters’ roll and check whether our names appear correctly in the voters’ roll.
Defend your vote! Defend your right to live, the $3800RTGS parallel market rate will starve.
Fight for the leveling of the electoral playing field! Without which we cannot win.
Keep standing for the truth, no matter the consequences. Good will always prevail over evil. It’s a matter of time!
God bless you all.
Jacob Ngarivhume
(In Chains)
More: Pindula News
