The Edgar Lungu Led Junta Is Using
Public Institutions Like The Police, Revenue Authority and the Independent
Broadcasting Authority To Fish Out Cases Against The Media To Intimidate Them
And Create Fear So That They Do Not Cover The Opposition
By
Nyalubinge Ngwende
Politicians, one day I may be one but probably with
exceptional values, think they have the free world to themselves. They think
they can have both worlds of being responsible and irresponsible and get away
with it. And when the media plays its adversary role to interpret and criticise
their irresponsibility they will walk all the way to find means to shut these
media up.
Media's role is not just about being a conveyor belt of
these politicians’ empty statements, actions and wishes. Media sees through
those statements and actions, threshes out truth and exposes falsehoods and laughs, sometimes with ridicule and
unreserved disrespect as well as harshness, at political stupidity albeit
politicians not wishing and unwilling to see it as such.
The Patriotic Front government in Zambia under President
Edgar Lungu is such a park of politicians who don’t want to accept the role of
the media, and it is not stopping anywhere nearer now from intimidating the
media.
Just before elections The Post, the country’s most
credible private newspaper, had its offices closed and its equipment seized, ostensibly
over a case of unpaid tax. The Zambia Revenue Authority still keeps the
newspaper shut. The paper has not been able to print in its full texture and
format ever since, as it has been left to improvise to maintain its circulation.
As that was not enough, immediately after elections the
not so Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was coerced, not from anywhere
else but State House, to suspend the license of the only credible private
television, Muvi TV. IBA claimed the television station broadcast material that
was inciting violence following a disputed election.
Largely, the concerned public thought the suspension of
the license for the television station was meant to deny opposition leaders a meaningful
mass medium through which they could build their case of a stolen election and
balanced coverage of the proceedings of the presidential election petition.
Fast forward!
Prime TV, another television station based in Lusaka, the
country’s capital city, is the latest victim of government intimidation. Police
are using one of the draconian laws, the State Security statute, to intimidate,
bring fear and coerce the station to release footage of a meeting held by
Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of United Party for National Development (UPND),
the country’s biggest opposition.
The police want the footage to build a case of treason
against the opposition leader who is believed to have defiantly declared during
the meeting that he will never ever recognise Edgar Lungu as the country’s
legitimately elected President.
The police wrote a letter asking the Prime TV owners to
avail the footage of their coverage of the opposition meeting. The television
station broadcast a story based on the letter from the police, which the police
are now treating as a leak of a State Secret.
“Today (October 13, 2016) we summoned Gerald Shawa, 42 who
is Managing Director of Prime TV and Makokwa Kozi, 35, the acting Station
Manager for the television Station in connection with a leaked government
document which the Zambia Police addressed to the Station's legal counsel
requesting for footage of the Press briefing that was held by the UPND on 10th
October, 2016,” said the police spokeswoman, Esther Katongo.
The police spokeswoman said the duo were “Warned and
Cautioned for the offence of Communication of Certain Information contrary to
section 4 (1)(b) of the State Security Act Chapter 111 of the Laws of Zambia, Section
4 (1) (b) of the State Security Act”.
According to Katongo the Act the police are citing states
that “Any person who has in his possession or under his control any document or
information which he has had access owing to his position as a person who holds
such office or has held such office and who Communicates the same to any person
other than a person to whom he is authorised to communicate, commits an offence”.
What the police are doing is nowhere nearer to meeting
professional standards. And One need not to be specialized in media law to
notice that the police are misapplying the State Security Act and doing the
most stupid thing—to bring cooked up charges to intimidate anyone and any
institution that aids the opposition to have their voice heard.
The question that most people are asking is: “when did a
police call-out
or document to a private individual or corporate citizen to avail themselves to
law enforcement ever become a State Security.
BJ
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