HH has lost legitimacy, Changala tells UN Rapporteur … he practices unprecedented tribalism

By Esther Chisola

Human Rights activist Brebnar Changala says President Hakainde Hichilema has lost legitimacy fundamentally due to his total failure to realise electoral promises as well as his divisive and cunning politics.

And Changala has submitted that a simple case of PF vs. Miles Sampa had failed to take off in the judiciary for two years, because the State House had an interest in the destruction of the largest opposition political party.  

He also charged that as a result, President Hichilema had resorted more viciously to colonial suppression, oppression and brutality.

Speaking when he appeared before the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Irene Khan who is in the country on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Changala said the police had turned into not only an instrument of oppression, but a wing of the UPND militia.

He also appealed to the International Community, including SADC, African Union to rein in on the UPND government as they were undermining the peace and stability this Southern African state had enjoyed for 60 years.

“President Hichilema has U-turned 360 degrees on his promised liberal policies, as it has turned out, he cannot win a free fair election, without brutalising the opposition, suppressing freedom of expression,” he said.

Changala said in the years of colonial rule, there was one prosecution for sedition and in 57 years, there was only one prosecution, which resulted into an acquittal but in under two years, President Hichilema, had arrested, detained and prosecuted over 13 political opponents, journalists and human rights defenders on sedition.

He also said President Hichilema had ethnised all critical positions in the judiciary and law enforcement.

“Only his tribesmen in the law enforcement handle such investigation cases and are tried by magistrates from his region. He practices unprecedented tribalism and those who speak against the vice are arrested, detained and prosecuted for hate speech. This legislation is used to pale or mask his tribalism,” he said.

He accused President Hichilema of having invested and worked very hard to ensure that the judiciary was not independent but accountable to him and him only.

“The separation of powers does not mean anything under his administration. The public has lost even little respect they previously had for our judiciary,” he added.

He contended that President Hichilema had destroyed judicial independence including the destruction of the country’s revered and respected Chief Justice Mumba Malila SC, through ethnicity and politicisation of the judiciary.

“He has thrown merit out of the window and replaced it with ethnicity, favoritism and nepotism,” he said.

Changala said people had lost confidence in the Zambian judiciary as it had been weaponised against the dissenting voices and opposition members.

“We are in a worse situation than the Kaunda’s one Party State regime, where we had brave judges like Justice Clever Musumali, who sentenced a sitting president’s son to death. The current law enforcement police cannot arrest the President’s son or indeed any UPND cadre nor can the judiciary impartially adjudicate such a matter,” Changala said.

And Changala said the law was on the side of PF as a party and deliberately the case was allocated to a judge who was a former UPND close associate or member.

“This case has only one simple question or issue; (Whether the convention by Miles Sampa was within the PF constitution) which undoubtedly was not,” said Changala.

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