Govt dismisses damning human rights report
By Charles Musonda
GOVERNMENT has described the findings of the Human Rights Watch on Zambia’s state of human rights as misinformation.
In an interview with The Mast, chief government spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa who is also Information and Media minister said the appetite to give false information by some of the international research agencies is increasingly becoming worrisome.
Human Rights Watch has raised the red flag on the deteriorating human rights situation in Zambia in its last report, but government has pushed back.
“A number of some of these reports that we read about emanate from desktop research and not connected to hard facts on the ground. Clearly that report does not resonate the truth. It does not resonate well with majority of Zambians who know the progress that has been registered under the New Dawn administration,” Mweetwa said.
“So to continue to insist that human rights have reached the lowest ebb is a fallacy and is fanatical.”
He questioned the researchers who are coming up with such information as to where they were when United Party for National Development (UPND) supporters were being shot dead by the police and rival cadres.
“Can they tell us a single PF cadre who has been shot dead by either police or cadres? The answer is no,” he said.
Mweetwa said President Hakainde Hichilema was not allowed to campaign and even fly the Zambian space when he was in opposition, but there was nobody who had been stopped from campaigning.
He said the media had zero space and faced intimidation, harassment, and closure for hosting the opposition during the time of the Patriotic Front (PF).
Mweetwa said it was of grave concern that international reports that were supposed to be of repute were relying on unjustifiable information.
He said it was not true that late former president Edgar Lungu was stopped from contesting the republican presidency.
“There is no where Edgar Lungu was stopped from contesting elections. He contested in 2021 general elections and resigned. At the time he came back to politics he died before any election could be held. So which election was he stopped from contesting?” Mweetwa asked.
