Zimbabwe police arrest US citizen for insulting Mugabe

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested and detained a US citizen for allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe on Twitter, lawyers and a US Embassy official said on Friday

According to report, Martha O‘Donovan whose laptop was seized is said to have called Mugabe a “Goblin” on the social media platform.

Martha who works for Magamba TV, was picked up during a raid on her Harare home on Friday morning, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said in a statement. 

It added that the police were armed with a search warrant linked to an investigation of a case of “undermining authority of or insulting the President.”

The police have not yet charged her but they claim that "tweets emanating from her IT address are insulting to the president," said O'Donovan's lawyer, Obey Shava with the group Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.

O‘Donovan’s Twitter account was locked on Friday but a photograph on her home page referred to #ShutdownZimbabwe2016, a series of protests last year that rattled Mugabe’s government and elicited a fierce crackdown on the streets and online. 

Central to their investigation, it said, was a post on O‘Donovan’s Twitter feed referring to a “Goblin” whose wife and step-sons had imported a Rolls Royce, an apparent reference to 93-year-old Mugabe even though he was not named. 

Recent online reports have claimed Mugabe’s two adult sons, Robert Jr and Chatunga, have imported at least one luxury vehicle from neighboring South Africa.

If convicted, O‘Donovan faces a maximum of one year in jail, her lawyer said.