In this audio, UPND president Hakainde Hichilema gives interviews to journalists for the first time since his arrest and detention for treason, six weeks ago.
“You heard the deliberations in court, not satisfactory, but this is the price that we have to pay. This is punishment, this is hatred. The world must pay attention to what is happening in Zambia, I am talking about the judgment that magistrate [Greenwell] Malumani gave, that is what we are going to rely on. There was no investigation. We were arrested brutally by these people here (pointing at police officers), robbed, dehumanised for a crime we did not commit,” HH said.
Asked to comment on the deportation of South Africa’s DA leader Mmusi Maimane, HH said that showed the brutality of the PF government.
“That shows how brutal this system is, how suppressive this system is. I give Mmusi Maimane kudos for his courage and understanding that justice denied somewhere is justice denied everywhere. He also correctly expresses that South Africa which is the leading power in our region, SADC, cannot be indifferent to dictatorship going on in Zambia because without the support of Zambian citizens, aparthied system would still have been there in South Africa and president Maimane understands that so it is important to the people of South Africa, other parts of Africa and the world at large to understand that we owe each other an obligation to protect the rights, freedoms and human rights across the global village,” said HH.
“I admire his courage, I thank him for what he has done, he did not need anyone’s permission to come and sit in this court, there is no law that says a foreigner cannot come and sit in this court. There are foreigners who come and sit here, some of these officers are foreigners anyway, but they still go out and beat us, why shouldn’t he come and sit in court? So I think Zambians should learn from Musi Maimane’s attitude and understand that Human Rights are universal…and this argument that Zambia is a soveriegn state, it is an argument of ignorance. Why is Zambia a signatory to the SADC protocols, AU, UN and human rights protocols? And I have heard this argument from people in the PF. It shows that we are led by a group of ignorant people, brutal people and worse still dictators.”
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