Evan Mawarire had been a strident critic of former President Robert Mugabe and was jailed by the statesman’s government after his This Flag movement saw thousands of people protest in the African nation.

He faced 20 years in prison, charged with trying to overthrow Mugabe’s government but his charges were later dropped.

Speaking with Premier, the pastor-turned activist said God has called him to fight injustice.

He explained: “It is important for people like myself – like I suppose in the Bible David did – to stand up and say ‘is there not a cause’?

“And I think that’s what still continues to drive me onwards when I face persecution that there is a cause for our nation; there is a cause for our generation and particularly future generations.

“I have young kids and people have often asked me ‘what really drives me or if I’m not afraid…’ and I’ll tell you the truth, I am more afraid of my daughters 20 or 25 years from now asking me ‘dad, why didn’t you do anything? Did you not believe God? Did you not believe what your call was’ and I think that’s what drives me to keep going.”

Mr Mugabe who was forced to resign after 37 years in power under pressure from the army and ruling ZANU-PF party.

The pastor said despite Mr Mugabe’s removal from office, the country still needs to make changes.

“As Zimbabweans we must realise…

Tory former Cabinet minister John Gummer, who sits in the Lords as Lord Deben, said the current marriage system was a “fudge”.

He told peers his Ecumenical Marriage Bill would not require the Church of England to make the change but remove a “legal impediment” from them being able to do so.

“We live in an ecumenical world and have to come to terms with that,” said Lord Deben, a former member of the Church of England general synod who is now a Catholic.

He said the Church of England should be “challenged” to decide whether it wanted to “make this step towards a more ecumenical society”.

But the move was opposed by the Bishop of Winchester, the Right Rev Tim Dakin, who said there was already considerable flexibility over marriages flowing from the relationship between churches of different denominations.

He warned that the Bill was a departure from the long standing constitutional convention that the Church of England made its own legislation by synodical process.

“This Bill is not the way to encourage ecumenical hospitality for which we continue to work and to which I am personally committed,” the Bishop said.

Tory Lord Robathan told Lord Deben that he was “instinctively uneasy” about a measure proposed by “somebody who has rejected the Church of England”.

For the Government, Baroness Vere of Norbiton said it was not conventional for Parliament to legislate directly on…

Lanre Haastrup outlined his fears after losing the latest round of a legal battle over treatment for 12-month-old Isaiah Haastrup.

Mr Haastrup said he was in the hands of bosses at King’s College Hospital in London, who have imposed a ban after raising concerns about his behaviour.

Three Court of Appeal judges on Friday dismissed a challenge by Mr Haastrup and Isaiah’s mother, Takesha Thomas – a Pentecostal Christian.

Isaiah’s parents had complained that a High Court judge was wrong to allow doctors to stop providing life-support treatment to the youngster and move to a palliative care regime.

But Lord Justice Patten, Lord Justice McFarlane and Lady Justice King, who had considered the case at a Court of Appeal hearing in London, said there was no basis for overturning Mr Justice MacDonald’s decision.

They said Mr Haastrup and Miss Thomas, who are both in their 30s and from Peckham, south-east London, had mounted a challenge based on hope, not reality.

Mr Haastrup said they would make approaches to the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

But he said he was worried that if those efforts proved fruitless he might not be with Isaiah for the last hours of the little boy’s life.

“Of course I am worried about that,” he said.

“I’m worried that I…