Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. HARARE magistrate Tapiwa Kuhudzai has dismissed Zimbabwe Independent editor Faith Zaba’s application of alteration of bail conditions, which could have seen her passport being temporarily released in order for her to travel to Singapore for a journalism summit.
Zaba is facing a charge of undermining President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
She was recently invited to attend the Women In News (WIN) Guild Gathering and Asia Media Leaders’ Summit in Singapore after being selected among 19 women in the three regions — Africa, Arab and Southeast Asia — to represent Zimbabwe.
WIN Guild is a community of top women editors and publishers working together to shift the needle on women’s leadership in the media.
WIN Guild, launched by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), is a ground-breaking initiative aimed at advancing women’s leadership in the media industry.
It unites senior women media executives from across Africa, the Arab region and Southeast Asia, offering them a safe, confidential space to engage in peer-to-peer mentorship, collaborate on shared challenges and advocate for gender equity.
However, in his ruling magistrate Kuhudzai said it was not in the interest of justice as the State feared that Zaba was a flight risk.
He said the State opposed the application arguing that such an application was granted only if it was in the best interests of justice to do so.
“The State submitted that the reason why the passport was taken away in the first place was to try and minimise the likelihood of the applicant to abscond and, as such, the release of the said passport would re-ignite such flight risk,” Kuhudzai ruled.
The court ruled that it was argued by the State that Zaba had not shown that there were no other means that she could use to participate in the summit without necessarily travelling there.
The State argued that Zaba had not established any cogent reasons for the proposed alteration since initially, the State was worried over the issue of flight risk and security in the country, which it said was cured by the handing over of the applicant’s passport and having her report at the CID Law and Order Section Harare.
“Releasing the applicant’s passport based on their promise to return for trial and security, in the form of a copy of the title deed and the name of the applicant’s legal practitioner, cannot be tenable,” it said.
The State also submitted that the basis for the applicant to attend a summit in Singapore had not been justified, especially given that there are other means in which the applicant can attend the convention.
Zaba was arrested on allegations that the Muckraker column published on June 27 titled When we become a mafia state, and cited Zimbabwe’s alleged interference in the politics of neighbouring countries and that the government was “obsessed with keeping itself in power”, which the prosecution alleged was meant to engender feelings of hostility towards Mnangagwa.
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