QUESTION; IS IT NOW CRIMINAL FOR THE MEDIA AND ITS JOURNALISTS TO COVER AN EVENT OR POLITICAL PRESS BRIEFING?
As Patriotic Front we want to express our displeasure at the disheartening events of yesterday where EEP party president Chilufya Tayali was brutally and unlawfully arrested by the police including the unlawful arrest of two journalists.
Firstly, we call upon the media and the journalists country wide to protect their own. An injury to one is an injury to all, and what happened to the two journalists Innocent PHIRI and Obvious KAPUNDA yesterday will happen to you tomorrow.
Additionaly, we call upon all media Houses to rise and condemn the New Dawn’s acts of media gagging and the incessant shrinking of media space and democratic space. So far the media is only useful to Mr Hichilema, when covering his hollow and empty speeches of deciet.
President Hakainde Hichilema continues to show his true colors of insincerity, barely a week after meeting media owners while reassuring them of his fake commitments to respect the constitution and role of the media.
We want to inform the nation that we as Patriotic Front with some opposition political parties with whom we share this grief, are ready to meet various foreign dignitaries, diplomats and international agencies who have called upon us to chat the way forward on Zambia’s deteriorating democracy and violation of human rights.
Among the issues to be discussed will include the political persecution and arrests of President Hakaindes’ political opponents such as Chilufya Tayali, Saboi Imboela among others, gagging and intimidation of the free press.
We want to state that Zambia will not slide into a failed state, with state sponsored terror, tyranny and violence unleashed on its citizens on the watch of Mr Hakainde Hichilema in full view of the international community. We will not allow gun carrying policemen to be sent to traumatise citizens with their families in the hay of night because of politics.
We warn all those involved to desist, the Attorney General, police and intelligence but rather implore them to act professional because the UPND’s tenure is surely coming to an end and the long arm of the law in the next govt will surely be vengeful. Let them invoke provisions of the law, in thier effort to sit down this growing tyrant and dictator in Mr Hakainde Hichilema.
The burglary nature in which the police, broke into Mr Tayali’s House and the subsequent beating and torture by the police will land many in trouble. It may not be now, but definitely one day. Mr Tayali is being transferred from one police station to another for avoidance of the general public to notice the torture and condition of his health.
In view of this, we want to caution more specifically the Deputy Inspector General State House Mr Fanwell Siandenge that these illegal acts by the police will land him in deep problems. His allaged roles and involvement whatoever will put him in problems and he sure knows the consequences. Junior officers must refuse to be given illegal orders, as they will charged as accomplices to these heinous crimes. The rights, lives and BLOOD of all these citizens being abused will be on his hands, ofcoursing acting together with Mr Hichilema.
Lastly, our parliamentarians have a solemn duty to protect the dictates of the laws they make, and they will not sit idle while Zambia slides into a BANANA REPUBLIC. Therefore, through our leader of opposition we will soon be considering to table a MOTION OF IMPEACHMENT OF THE PRESIDENT on the numerous if not countless abuses of authority and abrogation of the republican Constitution.
I THANK YOU
#PressFreedom
#FreedomOfExpression
#HumanRightsViolation
#DictatorHHMustFall
#RightToInformation
Hon. Raphael MANGANI NAKACINDA, PF MCC INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY CHAIRMAN.