Police dare UPND to go ahead with rally

Police dare UPND to go ahead with rally
By Allan Mulenga
Sat 08 Sep. 2012, 10:10 CAT

POLICE in Lusaka has warned opposition UPND members of arrest if they go ahead with their planned rally in Kanyama Compound. But SACCORD says there is no need for the police to stop the UPND rally, especially that they had earlier on sanctioned it.

Police have cancelled the UPND planned rally in Kanyama saying officers had been deployed in Ndola to police the Zambia Vs Uganda match today, but the opposition party has vowed to go ahead with their rally.

In an interview yesterday, Lusaka Province police commissioner Solomon Jere urged the UPND to heed police instructions to cancel the rally slated for tomorrow.

"The police have said there will be no rally. Those who want to go to the rally in Kanyama will be conducting unlawful assembly and they will be arrested. Let them go there at their own risk because we shall be there to make sure that we enforce the law," Jere said.

"As police, we are not involved in politicking. Let them stay away from the rally, we don't want to be blamed. We have warned them in advance and we are not joking. If they want to test us, let them go ahead and they will see!"
He said that Kanyama Compound was a volatile area which needed adequate security personnel.

"Kanyama is very volatile area. That is an area where you need adequate security personnel or else they the UPND will be lynched and they will be the first people to attack us. They should know that not everybody in Kanyama is UPND," he said.

Asked on assertions by some quarters that the tomorrow's Zambia-Uganda game which police had given as reason for cancellation of the UPND rally was not convincing, Jere said

the police had other security commitments that he would not disclose to the public.

"We have security commitment which we cannot disclose. Of course, apart from that, we have got the soccer match and then the conferment (of freemen of the city of Lusaka status) of the national team players here in Lusaka after the soccer match. We have got various 'potholes' of criminal activities that we need to cover. Even that, it depends on our action and advice to those who want to conduct public procession," he said.

On assertions by UPND senior officials that the police's decision was politically motivated since the law requires that a party gives notice, Jere dispelled the claims and said the move was purely based on police operational reasons.

"I know that the UPND will say that this is because of political instructions. We can advise even in less than 24 hours to stop doing whatever somebody intends to do because there is life at stake. We have that mandate to do that.

I know that they are talking about the expenses and so on, but what is more valuable, life or those expenses? They have argued that we have never covered them in their political activities, this is a different government. This government wants us to cover everybody and we are doing that," said Jere.

But Southern African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (SACCORD) information officer Obby Chibuluma said the move was a clear attempt by the police to deny the UPND members their constitutional right to assemble and express themselves.

Chibuluma said Jere ought to know being an educated person that the current public order Act had received interpretation by the Supreme Court which clearly stated that the police had no power to license people's meetings.

"The judgment also makes it clear that the police do not have the powers to deny citizens these rights, but rather, have a responsibility to ensure these events receive police protection. Dr Jere wants to use the excuse of the Zambia vs. Uganda match as a reason to suspend people's rights; one is left to wonder whether football is more important than rights which our people are supposed to enjoy. How can the police cancel the UPND rally 'until further notice' as though it were a police event?" he asked.

"We therefore find it strange that the police want to take this country back to the old days when they violated people's rights with impunity going by the way they administered the public order act."