Geza’s colleagues demand journalist Blessed Mhlanga’s release
By Staff Reporter
Fugitive war veteran and Zanu PF central committee member Blessed Geza’s colleagues have taken up the mantle through demands for Alpha Media Holdings senior journalist Blessed Mhlanga’s immediate release.
Speaking at a media conference in Harare on Friday, Ethan Mativera, who called himself legitimate chairman of the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association, declared they will not be silenced in the face of corruption and poor governance by the Emmerson Mnangagwa led administration.
Mhlanga was arrested and detained on Monday charged with disseminating messages that were likely to incite violence and breach peace.
The charges stem from the broadcasts he aired on the independent media stable’s HSTV of Geza criticising President Emmerson Mnangagwa for corruption and incompetence, further calling for his resignation.
Mhlanga was on Friday further remanded in custody and would be back in court on 14 March this year.
Mativera said no citizen should be locked up for practising their freedom of expression.
“We hear that one of our journalists carried his constitutional mandate to cover some of our statements and as we speak, I hear he is incarcerated,” he said.
“As war veterans, we are fully behind freedom of speech, freedom of association. Journalism is not a crime and we are appealing to the authority that they must desist from arraigning journalists just because they are doing their own job.”
Mativera said citizens were justified in expressing their displeasure when they were being misgoverned.
“Had they governed this country properly, we wouldn’t be having all these noises coming from citizens, hence the need to address the root cause rather than the symptoms because the so-called mischiefs of journalism is as a consequence of the very root cause.
“If this government was governing its people and the people are happy, surely we wouldn’t be having these problems.
“So, the honours is with government; either it does right, or people will not keep quiet.
“We have reached a point where we can no longer keep quiet. In fact, we will not only speak but will also act in order to the status quo,” he said.
The war veterans faction said they were concerned about the dire economic situation in the country which they attributed to unbridled corruption, misgovernance and nepotism.
The group vowed to stage demonstrations against the status quo adding that it was their constitutional right to do so.
