WE STOPPED UNZALARU PROTEST DUE TO TOO MANY ACTIVITIES – POLICE
LUSAKA Police Commissioner Lemekani Chirwa says UNZALARU was advised against having a planned protest on Friday due to the many activities that were happening.
On Friday, University of Zambia Lecturers and Researchers’ Union (UNZALARU) failed to have a scheduled protest march to State House, after they were stopped by police.
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UNZALARU had planned to protest over unpaid gratuities dating as far back to April, 2016, pensions dating back to 2016, and none remittance of statutory obligations such as NHIMA, NAPSA, ZRA, and Union subscriptions.
Earlier, UNZALARU wrote to police, notifying them of the planned protest but were advised against going ahead.
In an interview, Saturday, Chirwa said UNZALARU was advised to reschedule the protest to a date when the police had less responsibilities.
Chirwa stressed that conveners of demonstrations should heed to police advise.
“There are a lot activities which the police are doing. We are policing the Chawama by-election campaign[s] and we had presidential duties; providing VIP security at Mulungushi [International Conference Center]. So, we could not allow so many activities taking place at once, we are over strict, we have so many events at once.
So, we set the priority, we didn’t tell them that they cannot do their activity, but they should reschedule when we feel there are no major activities around in town, then they will be instructed to do it. When we advise as police those conveners who are mobilizing the event, they should respect our advice.
Sometimes we cannot tell them exactly why and we tell them it is for security reasons, behind security reasons there are a lot of other factors, so they have to cooperate with us,” said Chirwa.
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