HRC QUIET ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, LAMENTS FRANK
Socialist Party (SP) Spokesperson Frank Bwalya says he is disappointed with how quiet the Human Rights Commission (HRC) is over human rights violations in the country.
Recently, the United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour published the Zambia 2022 Human Rights Report which, among other things, highlighted that government showed high levels of sensitivity to criticism, particularly, from opposition political figures and restricted the ability of individuals to criticise it freely.
Commenting on this in an interview, Monday, Bwalya said it was shameful that the commission had not spoken about the state of affairs in the country, leaving a foreign entity to do so.
“Firstly, it is shameful that our own Human Rights Commission has not spoken about the situation in Zambia in the manner that a foreign entity has been doing. We invest no money in that foreign entity, we invest tax payers’ money in the Human Rights Commission back here in Zambia and we expect that the Human Rights Commission in Zambia would do a better job because everything has been happening right under their nose. We do agree with the report and we emphasise our disappointment and urge the Human Rights Commission in Zambia to do more to highlight these abuses by the UPND government,” he said.
Bwalya said the sensitivity to criticism, especially from opposition members, was a warning bell.
“The sensitivity that has been referred to in the report is actually a warning bell because this sensitivity we have seen, over sensitivity in fact from the UPND, is what generates the kind of intolerance that leads to physical violence and us in the opposition have suffered as the ones who bear the brunt of the barrel. We have suffered from this intolerance of the UPND. Their behaviour has been as if to create the impression that upon being elected by the Zambian people, being given the mandate to govern, they’re the only ones who have the right or the license to comment on public issues. To comment even on their own violations,” he said.
“In other words, there’s been an attempt to systematically undermine critical voices in the country. That has been done in a number of ways. One of them is to appoint people from the civil society who have in the past been very vocal in curbing the excesses of government. Appointing such civil society personalities into public office as public servants either as directors in ministries, as ambassadors and high commissioners and so on. So, we do fully agree with that report”.
Bwalya added that the UPND’s intolerance should be addressed because soon, party cadres would become violent and start manhandling anyone with a critical voice.
“Even when you speak on radio, when you try to meet your members as an opposition political party for an indoor meeting with very few people, you don’t do it freely because you know that once they get wind of you being in a certain area, the police will arrive and it’s the only time that the police demonstrate capacity to have resources, to have the time to deal with what they consider wrong doing. It takes them too long to appear at the crime scene, they may not even appear at all, but when it’s a politician who is just enjoying his or her own constitutional rights such as freedom of association, freedom of assembly, the police are very swift,” said Bwalya.
“That’s the only time you see them swift because they are moving at the instruction of the politicians and this insensitivity and intolerant on the part of the UPND should be nipped in the bud because sooner than later, they will become violent and looking and the statements that are coming from their senior leaders, we know very well that their cadres are getting the signal to start manhandling people with critical voices. We saw it in the manner the president and other senior UPND leaders reacted to a very, very simple statement urging the President to use [a] language that is expected by the people in the compounds who are suffering instead of graphs, the classical case of ulutoshi by the Catholic Priest Father Anthony Salangeta. The way the UPND responded clearly showed too much sensitivity and intolerance and it is laughable in societies that claim to be democratic. That kind of response is indeed laughable. One would fail to understand how a government would descend on this innocent priest like a ton of bricks just for that simple statement.”
( News Diggers )