By BARNABAS ZULU
THE summoning of Dr Fred M’membe by the Zambia Police is meant to harass and intimidate opposition political leaders by the UPND regime, Brebner Changala has charged.
And State Counsel Sakwiba Sikota has said the UPND should be ready to arrest as many opposition leaders, declaring that he shall lead the opposition to Police Force Headquarters in solidarity with Dr M’membe who has been summoned to appear before the police tomorrow.
Yesterday, Police in Lusaka have summoned Socialist Party leader Dr M’membe in connection with a recent held joint press conference by the opposition and the civil society organisations.
But Mr Changala, the civil rights and political activist who was part of the coalition and made a statement, has described the summoning of Dr M’membe as nothing but intimidation of critical and dissenting voices.
“They don’t mean well. They have to summon everybody. But you know the Zambia Police is highly politicized…they are unprofessional. They work to please politicians. You can see that Dr Fred Mmembe was not alone. The entire team should be summoned not only Dr Mmembe alone,” he said.He stated that there was no law that Dr Mmembe had broken by advising the country’s security forces to be loyal to Zambia and not individual politicians in power.
“There is no law that Dr M’membe broke. It is intimidation. We are dealing with a draconian regime,” he said.
And United Kwacha Alliance (UKA) chairperson Sakwiba Sikota SC said the opposition and the civil society movement, would tomorrow go in numbers to escort Dr Mmembe in solidarity and understand the reasons why he had been summoned.
He stated that the UPND administration was so desperate and they want to silence critical voices.
“It is really odd that this government feels so insecure that they want to arrest everybody, left, right and centre. That shows lack of self confidence in themselves. They should instead be dealing with things that affect the people. It’s clearly persecution by a frightened clique of people. It’s time that put aside their little egos and instead realise that they have put us in position as a country where there is so much poverty,” Mr Sikota said.
“We will escort so that we can see what they want… Apart from that, what is wrong in asking the military to defend the constitution? Should we tell them to abandon the Constitution? That is the duty of the army. If you are asking people to protect the constitution, you are not doing anything illegally, because your duty is protect the Constitution,” he said.
According to a call out, Dr M’membe is scheduled to appear tomorrow at Police Force Headquarters at 10:00 hours.
