Mzilikazi wa Afrika

Who is Mzilikazi wa Afrika?

Mzilikazi wa Afrika is a South African investigative journalist currently best known for his arrest in August 2010 on charges of fraud and defeating the ends of justice, which escalated the debate in his country about media freedom and, in light of a proposed Media Appeals Tribunal and Protection of Information Act, seeming attempts by the governing African National Congress to curtail it.

Suggestions abound that the arrest was politically motivated, coming as it did just a day after Bheki Cele, reacting to an article by Wa Afrika which detailed the police chief's involvement in a dubitable R500,000,000 lease agreement, described him as "shady" and hinted at reprisal. Wa Afrika's newspaper The Sunday Times subsequently quoted "a senior police official close to the case" as admitting, "Ja, it's political pressure," while Wa Afrika himself claimed to have been asked by his captors "whether I was involved in discrediting senior ANC office bearers in Mpumalanga. That made me wonder whether the police were investigating a criminal or a political case. They also wanted to know who are the big politicians I'm working with behind the scenes. This made me conclude the police were sent by politicians to harass and intimidate me."