Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law was released in 2013. More than a decade has passed since the cameras stopped rolling in Zimbabwe. The lawyers, activists, and journalists whose stories the film tells have continued to live under one of Africa’s most persistently authoritarian governments — and in some cases, their stories have grown even more dramatic than what the documentary captured. Here is where they are now.
Beatrice Mtetwa — Still Fighting, Still in Zimbabwe
Beatrice Mtetwa remains in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she continues to practice law at her firm, Mtetwa and Nyambirai. In the years since the film was made, she has faced escalating pressure from the government — not under Mugabe, who was removed in a military coup in November 2017, but under his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose government has continued many of the same patterns of repression.
In August 2020, Mtetwa was barred by a Harare magistrate from representing detained journalist Hopewell Chin’ono — her own co-producer on the documentary — and was threatened with a contempt of court referral after speaking to journalists outside the courtroom. The ruling was widely condemned by press freedom organizations and the international legal community as an attack on the right to legal representation.
In June 2025, Mtetwa published an open letter to Zimbabwe’s Judicial Service Commission, raising concerns about judicial independence and the continued compromising of the court system under political pressure. Her willingness to write publicly to the body that oversees Zimbabwe’s judges reflects both her undiminished courage and the continued deterioration of the legal environment in which she works.
She remains one of the most internationally recognized lawyers in Africa. Her awards include the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage (Georgia Tech, 2014) and an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University (2016).
Jestina Mukoko — Continuing Human Rights Work
Jestina Mukoko is the executive director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, the human rights organization whose work monitoring and documenting political violence in Zimbabwe made her a target of the Mugabe government. In December 2008, she was abducted by state security agents and held incommunicado for 89 days. Her case — including the legal battle led by Beatrice Mtetwa to secure her release and accountability for her abductors — is one of the central stories in the documentary.
Mukoko was eventually released, charges against her were dropped, and Mtetwa pursued civil damages against her abductors in their personal capacity. Mukoko has continued her work at the Zimbabwe Peace Project, which remains one of the most important civil society organizations tracking political violence in Zimbabwe. The ZPP continues to publish monthly reports documenting human rights abuses across the country.
Mukoko has also moved into electoral politics — she contested a parliamentary seat in Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections, reflecting the ongoing determination of civil society figures to engage with formal democratic processes even in a deeply compromised electoral environment.
Elias Mudzuri — From Mayor to Parliament
Elias Mudzuri was the first opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) mayor of Harare. Shortly after his election, he was arrested and beaten by Mugabe’s police, and the government eventually locked him out of the mayor’s office. His case illustrated how the Mugabe regime used legal and extralegal means to suppress democratic governance at the local level.
Mudzuri went on to serve in Zimbabwe’s Parliament, and was one of the senior figures in the MDC and its successor parties. He has remained active in Zimbabwean politics in the years since the film, representing the continued effort to build democratic institutions in a country where those institutions have been consistently attacked.
Hopewell Chin’ono — Arrested, Exiled, Still Reporting
Hopewell Rugoho-Chin’ono, the Zimbabwean co-producer of the documentary, has had one of the most turbulent post-film journeys of anyone connected to the project. His investigative journalism exposing corruption in Zimbabwe’s government — including a major story about alleged fraud in government COVID-19 procurement contracts — led to his arrest in July 2020. He was held for weeks before being granted bail, then arrested again in subsequent months on charges that press freedom organizations described as politically motivated.
Beatrice Mtetwa sought to represent him at one of his hearings — and was barred from doing so, in what became an internationally reported incident that reinforced the film’s central argument about what happens when the rule of law is undermined.
Chin’ono was eventually released, but faced continued harassment. He has since relocated outside Zimbabwe and continues to report and comment on Zimbabwean politics and human rights from exile. His case has become one of the most widely cited examples of journalist persecution in sub-Saharan Africa in the 2020s.
Zimbabwe’s Rule of Law in 2025
The political transition that removed Robert Mugabe in November 2017 raised hopes that Zimbabwe might move toward genuine rule-of-law reform. Those hopes have largely not been realized. Under Emmerson Mnangagwa, the country has held elections that international observers described as significantly flawed, maintained restrictions on press freedom and civil society, and continued to deploy legal tools — arrests, bail conditions, contempt proceedings — against journalists, opposition figures, and human rights lawyers.
Beatrice Mtetwa’s 2025 letter to the Judicial Service Commission is a reminder that the systemic problems the film documented — selective prosecution, judicial deference to executive power, the use of law as a tool of repression — remain active and present in Zimbabwe today.
The film’s central message has not aged. The rule of law requires defenders. And the people who defend it, in Zimbabwe and elsewhere, often pay a high price for doing so.
Read more about Beatrice Mtetwa’s biography and legal career, or learn about bringing the film to your university or organization.