{"id":32273,"date":"2017-02-02T03:30:15","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T03:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/zimbabwe-s-thisflag-pastor-evan-mawarire-detained\/"},"modified":"2017-02-02T03:30:11","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T03:30:11","slug":"zimbabwe-s-thisflag-pastor-evan-mawarire-detained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/zimbabwe-s-thisflag-pastor-evan-mawarire-detained\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe&#8217;s #ThisFlag pastor Evan Mawarire detained on return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A Zimbabwean pastor who criticised his government has been detained after flying back to the country.}<\/p>\n<p>Evan Mawarire, who left the country last year in fear for his life, was arrested at Harare International Airport.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC&#8217;s Shingai Nyoka reports that police have not said what he has been charged with.<\/p>\n<p>The pastor backed a stay-at-home strike last July, which was one of the largest anti-government protests in years.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Mawarire first came to fame last April when he posted a video on Facebook of himself wrapped in a Zimbabwean flag complaining about the state of the nation.<\/p>\n<p>It sparked a #ThisFlag protest movement against the leadership of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Protesters were demanding that civil servants were paid on time, roadblocks were reduced and police officers stopped harassing people for cash.<\/p>\n<p>They also demanded that President Robert Mugabe fire and prosecute corrupt officials.<\/p>\n<p>In July, protesters staged a national &#8220;shutdown&#8221; which led to a complete closure of schools, businesses and shops across the country. It was the biggest strike action since 2005.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Mawarire was arrested and charged with inciting public violence but a court ruled police had violated his rights and released him.<\/p>\n<p>He left the country soon after.<\/p>\n<p>He has been in the US for about six months.<\/p>\n<p>When he landed in Zimbabwe on Wednesday, Mr Mawarire &#8220;was escorted into another room by three men even before he went through immigration or customs&#8221;, his sister Telda Mawarire told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n<p>Our correspondent reports that, after being detained at the airport, Mr Mawarire was taken to a police station in the centre of the capital, Harare.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17977 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_90368189_85ae0292-e179-41cc-92dd-fd92ee096f78.jpg\" alt=\"Pastor Evan Mawarire used the Zimbabwe flag to rally for change\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A Zimbabwean pastor who criticised his government has been detained after flying back to the country.} Evan Mawarire, who left the country last year in fear for his life, was arrested at Harare International Airport. The BBC&#8217;s Shingai Nyoka reports that police have not said what he has been charged with. The pastor backed a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","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\/32273","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=32273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32273"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32273"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}