Zimbabwe: Mnangagwa's Online Stormtroopers Target Women Who Speak Out

Zimbabwe: Mnangagwa's Online Stormtroopers Target Women Who Speak Out

The Varakashi are using anonymous and fake accounts to mock, delegitimise and threaten opposition to the ruling ZANU PF party.

Emmerson Mnangagwa’s online stormtroopers target women who speak out

Emmerson Mnanangagwa at a Zanu PF conference in Masvingo. Photo by AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Alamy Zimbabwe’s brutal regime, under President Emmerson Mnangagwa, is using social media, particularly X, to smear and silence mostly female anti-government political activists and human rights defenders in the country. President Mnangagwa’s army of paid pro-government social media trolls is known as the Varakashi —propaganda stormtroopers—with s…

Zimbabwe: Emmerson Mnangagwa's online stormtroopers target women who speak out - Index on Censorship

Zimbabwe’s brutal regime, under President Emmerson Mnangagwa, is using social media, particularly X, to smear and silence mostly female anti-government political activists and human rights defenders in the country. President Mnangagwa’s army of paid pro-government social media trolls is known as the Varakashi —propaganda stormtroopers—with some using names of prominent people to open fake X accounts without their knowledge. One ghost X account u…