An unlikely pastor has been thrust into the forefront as a key societal leader against President Robert Mugabe’s longtime authoritarian rule.
Evan Mawarire, 39, an evangelical priest, was arrested and detained in June after a video he had posted the year before sparked a social movement calling for an end to government corruption and Mugabe’s ironclad 28-year-long rule.
After posting the video in April 2015, which showed him wrapped in a Zimbabwean flag and arguing that the country needed change, it went viral online and sparked dozens of protests in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare. The movement came to be known as #ThisFlag.
Despite the growing backlash he has received from authorities, Mawarire is remaining steadfast in his pursuit against “corruption, injustice, and poverty.”
“I’m the one that’s responsible for helping Zimbabwe to regain an honorable place among the nations of the world,” Mawarire said.
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