Zimbabwe Court Acquits Opposition Activist After Denying Bail Five Times Over Seven Months

A Harare magistrates' court acquitted Godfrey Chidhau Karembera on June 3, 2026, and ordered his release after more than seven months in pre-trial detention. Karembera, 47, is known publicly as Madzibaba Veshanduko, or leader of change in Shona. The court cleared him of incitement to participate in a public gathering with intent to commit public violence.

Karembera was arrested on October 20, 2025. A magistrate court denied him bail three times, and the High Court twice upheld those rulings. His lawyer, Paidamoyo Saurombe, told Human Rights Watch that the charges alleged Karembera had distributed and printed fliers to mobilize people for the One Million Men March protest scheduled for October 17, 2025.

The protest was organized to oppose the Mnangagwa administration and a proposed constitutional amendment to extend the president's term. Karembera's wife told Human Rights Watch that a few days before the arrest, the family left a rented home in Harare because of surveillance by people in unmarked vehicles. Men in civilian clothes repeatedly asked her about her husband.

The family had moved to Harare after their home in Guruve, 150 kilometers north of the capital, was destroyed in a suspected arson attack in April 2025. , unknown people broke down the door where Karembera was staying. They blindfolded him, put him in a vehicle, drove him to a secluded place, and beat him severely until the next morning, Saurombe said.

The assailants then left him at the Law and Order Section at Harare Central Police Station. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights informed Karembera's wife of his location. On the morning of October 21, she saw him at the station in severe pain, without a shirt, with a swollen head, coughing and spitting blood.