In an incident on May 25, MMD members reportedly tried to block Post reporters from going to State House, and threatened to beat them up during a function on Africa Freedom Day, allegedly due to the paper’s reporting on President Rupiah Banda’s government.
Criticism of the government’s failure to take measures to end harassment of Post journalists has come from Paul Samasumo, spokesperson for the Roman Catholic bishops’ group, the Zambia Episcopal Conference.
“The issue of harassing journalists is a matter of urgency that the government should immediately address,” said Samasumo on June 2. “The MMD has the capacity to put an end to this problem because if not checked it will translate into a big thing.
“As a church, we stand for peace and the current harassment of journalists in the country, especially from The Post newspaper, is very worrying. A lot of stakeholders have asked the government to put a stop to it but nothing has been done. We urge government to put an end to it. These are innocent journalists and the MMD government should find a way of educating their cadres.”
The president of the Zambia-based International Fellowship of Christian Churches, Bishop Simon Chihana said, “We live in a democratic country and we should not allow a few people to destroy it. We need to protect journalists in the country so that they don’t work in fear.”
On June 1, Bishop Paul Mususu of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, an evangelical group, was quoted in the The Post saying, “It is totally inexcusable for any political party cadre to take the law into their own hands and start harassing journalists.” He called on the Zambia police not to be partisan.
On June 5, Henry Kabwe, the head of the Zambian section of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, a regional media freedom advocacy group, regretted that violence against journalists in the country by some political party members had been emulated by members of the public.
His comments followed reports that earlier in June, relatives of the former human resource officer in the Ministry of Health, Henry Kapoko, harassed journalists who had gone to cover a court case in which he is appearing at the Lusaka Magistrates’ Court.
Kabwe said there is a need for politicians and citizens in the country to support existing media institutions. He called for decisive action to be taken against party activists to end harassment of journalists carrying out their public duty.
