By Mubanga Mubanga
Police have maintained that the New Heritage Party rally which was scheduled for Mandevu today was not allowed due to security concerns.
And the police say in the future when the situation improves, political parties would be allowed again to hold rallies.
The New Heritage Party led by Chishala Kateka was today scheduled to hold a rally in Mandevu but the police unleashed full riot gear officers to disrupt the meeting.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, police deputy public relations officer Danny Mwale said the opposition party went ahead to conduct the rally despite the permit being denied.
“We refused Heritage party to hold a rally in Mandevu due to security concerns, but they went ahead that is the reason we stopped them from holding the rally,” he said.
Mwale explained that the Heritage applied for a permit for a rally, but police refused to give them a go ahead due to security concerns.
He said the party later dared the police by going ahead with the rally saying it was the reason they were stopped.
“We didn’t stop them today, we wrote to them to say that they were not supposed to hold a rally. They notified again we told them due to security concerns they could not go ahead. So we didn’t stop them today. We responded to them a long time ago they know, we gave the reasons to say security concerns full stop. We can’t say we are not being fair or unfair no,” Mwale said.
The deputy police spokesperson disputed allegations that the police were helping the UPND government in shrinking the democratic space in the country saying the police work independently.
Mwale further said that maybe in the future when the situation improves political parties would be allowed again to hold rallies.
“Those allegations are what we are disputing, we operate independently we know what we are doing. No we don’t know about tomorrow, maybe by tomorrow the situation might be okay. But as of today that was the reason,” said Mwale.
