No, Cdes and foes alike – I will not budge on this. Not an inch. Not ever.
The issue is simple: when a citizen – in this case Blessed Mhlanga – goes abroad and appears to advocate external punitive pressure against his own country, the state should and will respond. That is not repression. That is sovereignty.
Let us stop hiding behind euphemisms. “International engagement” that results in sanctions is not diplomacy – it is punishment by proxy. Zimbabwe has already endured that punishment. Sanctions were not academic concepts. They were empty hospitals, broken industries, unpaid salaries and families driven into exile. The burden was carried by ordinary citizens, not by those performing outrage abroad.
We are told he “spoke the truth.” Truth without context is propaganda. And context matters. He is suspected to have been involved in the framing of the Blessed Geza pre-recorded “interview” – a spectacle laced with statements widely viewed as reckless and destabilising. You cannot separate the international grandstanding from the domestic backdrop. No serious state does.
No functioning government tolerates external lobbying for punitive action against itself. The United States did not shrug when it believed Julian Assange had compromised its interests – it pursued him relentlessly across jurisdictions. States defend themselves.
In an even more extreme and tragic case, consider what happened to Jamal Khashoggi after he confronted the Saudi establishment from abroad. That response was excessive and indefensible – but it reinforces a universal reality: when states perceive threats to sovereignty or dignity, they act.
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence. Criticise policy – yes. Debate leadership – yes. But once you appear to invite foreign pressure that historically crushed your own citizens, you have crossed from dissent into destabilisation.
And let us interrogate the moral theatre. Where were these international audiences he was twerking for in Geneva when hundreds of journalists were being killed in Gaza by the Israelis? Where was the righteous outrage then? Their conscience seems highly selective.
Zimbabwe is not a stage for applause-seeking activism.
So let us ask plainly: Aida kunyatsodii chaizvo, Blessed wenyu uyu? What was the objective? To tighten the screws again? To resurrect economic suffocation while claiming moral heroism abroad?
Hazviite. Not again.
National sovereignty is not decorative. It is not optional. And no individual’s claimed rights will be allowed to jeopardise the collective rights of millions. The law exists to protect that line – and it will be enforced. Firmly. Decisively. Without apology.
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