Time to repeal oppressive colonial laws, says M’membe
By George Zulu
SOCIALIST Party (SP) president Dr Fred M’membe has called for the repeal of outdated colonial-era laws that were used to oppress Africans.
Dr M’membe expressed concern that Patriotic Front (PF) Secretary General Raphael Nakacinda had been jailed for a law that was created in 1938 by the colonial masters.
Addressing the media shortly after the Lusaka Magistrate’s Court sentenced to Nakacinda to six months imprisonment with hard labor for hate speech, Dr M’membe said such laws were intended to stifle freedoms of expression and opinion by the colonial masters.
He said he made an application in his case challenging the hate speech charge based on constitutional freedoms.
“We made an application this morning in the case I am involved in a similar case. We have asked the referee to call the matter to the High Court for constitutionality. These are laws that were formulated in 1938 by the colonial authorities and those who gave us these laws have abandoned them,” he said.
Dr M’membe cited the United Kingdom (UK), Canada and other African countries that had abandoned such laws.
“Canada has abandoned these laws. Kenya has abandoned these laws. Ghana has abandoned these laws. Even a troubled country like Sierra Leone has abandoned these laws,” he said.
He said sedition laws were unfit for a democracy.
“These laws do not fit in a democratic discussion. This includes the laws under which, the hate speech laws under which Nakacinda has been imprisoned for six months. We have to behave in a different way from the colonisers. We can’t hang onto laws that were formulated, that were enacted to oppress us, to subjugate us, to replace us and we take pride in that,” he said.
Lusaka Principal Resident Magistrate Idah Phiri yesterday convicted and sentenced Nakacinda to six months’ imprisonment with hard Labour for hate speech.
Rendering judgment, Magistrate Phiri found that Nakacinda’s remarks in 2023 showed hatred and ridicule towards the Tonga-speaking people from Bweengwa in Southern Province on account of their tribe and place of origin when he criticized voters for electing a person from Bweengwa to State House in President Hakainde Hichilema.
She said Nakacinda’s sentiments had the potential to incite violence and promote ethnic division.
Nakacinda will serve the six-month jail term concurrently with the 18-month jail term he is already serving for another outdated charge of defamation of the President.
