Lubinda thumbs down Amnesty report on Zambia
…says we have a stellar human rights record
28th June 2021
Former Minister of Justice Given Lubinda has brushed off a report from Amnesty International that alludes that Zambia has a questionable human rights record.
Mr Lubinda, a long serving cabinet Minister and legislator has also implored the NGO to encourage states that are doing well rather than paint “every African country with the same brush of impunity.
The former minister was speaking after AI, a notorious NGO with a propensity of doing damning reports of Africa launched its 2021 report on Zambia on Monday.
In its report widely seen as biased by many analysts, AI accused the government of President Lungu of all manner of atrocities starting from extra judicial killings to unlawful arrests including suppression of private media.
“The reports reads like page from a failed African state,” Mr Lubinda said, “it is in no way a Zambian story of decades of peace and stability that is being portrayed its biased and cheap propaganda essay that must be dismissed with contempt.”
Mr Lubinda said AI deliberately ignored to recognise President Lungu for among other things, reducing sentences such as death for reformed prisoners to life.
“Every good student of human rights does recognise that under President Lungu, prisoners have never had it better starting from reduced sentences, no death sentences including visitations for none flight risk convicts,” Mr Lubinda said.
He said while the rest of the democratic world commended Zambia for holding peaceful elections since independence, AI only saw it fit to paint Zambia black for “sporadic and minor” incidents of violence, which are still regrettable but not unique to Zambia.
“There´s no all out war in Zambia this is a country ranked by several respectable international agencies as a beacon of peace on the continent,” Mr Lubinda.
The former Justice Minister said the fact that Zambia has held free and fair elections, has had six Presidents without going to war, “should count for something.”
Mr Lubinda said where arrests have been effected or institutions sanctioned, “there has always been recourse to the courts and the arrests have been effected only if the law was abrogated just like any other country in the international community because without laws there´s bound to be anarchy.”
The former Minister expressed disappointment that AI that has been given a “direct personal audience with President Lungu in the past five years could turn around and bite us like a snake.”
He deplored the “dirty tactics” the institution used in arriving at its findings which he said fell directly in the realm of the Zambian opposition.
“The report looks like something AI wrote in cohorts with the opposition,” Mr Lubinda said, “but we are happy that the international community can see beyond the sensation AI uses to catch attention and please their donors.”
Zambia has constantly been on the top five lists of most peaceful and stable countries in Africa, as well as a country that adheres to strict governance covenants said Mr Lubinda.
Mr Lubinda added that under President Lungu, Zambia would continue abiding by the laws in order to avoid anarchy.
He expressed doubt on whether President Lungu would open his doors to AI again after re elction on 12th August this year, which he has been billed to win by expert observers.