{"id":29734,"date":"2016-10-26T03:27:48","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T03:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/zimbabwe-judge-fines-chinese-man-for-selling\/"},"modified":"2016-10-26T03:27:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T03:27:28","slug":"zimbabwe-judge-fines-chinese-man-for-selling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/zimbabwe-judge-fines-chinese-man-for-selling\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe judge fines Chinese man for selling flags"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A judge in Zimbabwe has fined a Chinese national for selling the national flag without authorisation, the state-run Herald newspaper reports.}<\/p>\n<p>The businessman, named by The Herald as 28-year-old Weidong Li, was fined $20 (\u00a316) and in total 314 flags were seized.<\/p>\n<p>Last month Zimbabwean officials warned that anyone who &#8220;abused&#8221; the flag risked prosecution.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-government protesters have been using flags and the hashtag #ThisFlag.<\/p>\n<p>The protest movement, initiated by a pastor Evan Mawarire, called on Zimbabweans to re-own their flag and to force politicians to answer questions on their lack of accountability and corrupt ways without fear.<\/p>\n<p>On passing the sentence against Mr Weidong, presiding judge Tendai Mahwe said he was showing leniency, saying the accused had saved the court time by pleading guilty.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You bought the flags in China and you were selling them for profit,&#8221; Mr Mahwe was quoted by the Herald as saying.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The moral blameworthiness is low and I will take into consideration that you will lose your flags,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese national was arrested after officials found the flags on display for sale at his shop in Harare, the capital.<\/p>\n<p>He becomes the first person to be found guilty of breaching the Flag of Zimbabwe Act, which bans any trade involving the national flag without official permission.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-15942 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_91322877_zimbabweflaggettyimages-547266404-2.jpg\" alt=\"The Chinese man was fined in the wake of the #ThisFlag movement which calls for change in Zimbabwe\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A judge in Zimbabwe has fined a Chinese national for selling the national flag without authorisation, the state-run Herald newspaper reports.} The businessman, named by The Herald as 28-year-old Weidong Li, was fined $20 (\u00a316) and in total 314 flags were seized. Last month Zimbabwean officials warned that anyone who &#8220;abused&#8221; the flag risked prosecution. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29734"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29734"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}