JOHANNESBURG — Six political activists in Zimbabwe who gathered last year to watch and discuss television news broadcasts of the Arab Spring protests were convicted on Monday of conspiring to commit violence in an effort to overthrow the government.

The penalty could be 10 years in prison. They are to be sentenced on Tuesday.

About 45 activists, students and trade unionists were arrested last February while attending a meeting convened by Munyaradzi Gwisai, a lecturer at the law school at the University of Zimbabwe and a former member of Parliament for Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, to discuss the antiauthoritarian uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

Prosecutors claimed that Mr. Gwisai and the others were planning to start a similar uprising in Zimbabwe aimed at toppling President Robert G. Mugabe, who has been in power for three decades. Most of the defendants were later released, but six, including Mr. Gwisai, were charged with serious crimes. Lawyers for the accused said the meeting was an academic discussion, not a planning session for a revolution.

The judge in the case, Kudakwashe Jarabini, said in court that while watching videos of the Arab uprisings was not a crime, the organizers had intended to incite hostility toward the government by playing them, according to people in the courtroom.