For 24 days in March, one of the most respected journalists in Southern Africa, Fred M'membe, and his colleague, Bright Mwape, were silenced by the Zambian Parliament and imprisoned in maximum security jails. They were charged with contempt of parliament in terms of the Protection, Privileges and Powers Act - a law that was enacted when Zambia was still British Nyasaland. It was only through a habeas corpus writ, challenging the method of their arrest, that they were released. They remain in contempt of parliament and will have to appear before it for sentencing in this regard. One other journalist, Lucy Sichone, who was charged in the same manner, went into hiding and was not jailed along with her colleagues.
The law under which the journalists were charged is an ill-defined offence which also gives the parliament a broad range of powers to imprison or banish members or outsiders from its precints. Trial for contempt of Parliament involves a total lack of procedural guidelines, including judgement by a partial tribunal (in this case, the speaker himself decided on the matter) and no right of appeal to the courts. In Britain, where the law was originally enacted, it has now fallen into disuse and no-one has been imprisoned under this law since 1880.
M'membe, editor-in- chief of The Post newspaper, and Mwape, the managing editor of the same newspaper, were arrested by Zambian police on March 4 after being sentenced in absentia by Parliament on February 27.
The incidents leading up to the incarceration of the two journalists goes back to January 10 this year when the Zambian Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional a clause in the country's Public Order Act. The clause made it compulsory for anybody wishing to hold a public gathering to apply for a police permit. The ruling was made in an appeal filed by members of the main opposition party, theUnited National Independence Party (UNIP). Shortly after this ruling was handed down, The Post reported that some members of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) were calling for the resignation of the judge that passed the ruling.
In the January 29 edition of The Post, three articles appeared in which Vice-President Godfrey Miyanda was criticised for apparently calling for the resignation of the Supreme Court Judge during a debate in Parliament. The next day, Miyanda raised a point of order in Parliament against the articles. The matter was handed over to the Speaker of Parliament and on February 21, the Speaker found the trio in contempt of Parliament.
The move by the Speaker was widely criticised both nationally and internationally as a miscarriage of justice. The three journalists were not granted an opportunity to defend themselves, while the right of journalists to report on debates in Parliament - the highest forum of debate for public officials - was clearly curtailed.
Once the Speaker had made his ruling, he referred the matter to the Standing Orders Committee, which is dominated by the MMD. The three journalists were ordered to appear before this committee for sentencing on February 23, but they failed to appear and went into hiding instead. The Speaker then immediately ordered their arrest and indefinite imprisonment.
Within days of the arrests, a delegation of South, Southern African and international individuals representing various newspapers and freedom of speech organisations called for a meeting with Zambian President Frederick Chiluba to discuss the matter. The arrangement for this proposed meeting was being co-ordinated by the FXI, but Chiluba has still not responded.
The imprisonment of the two journalists marked the climax of an increasingly acrimonious relationship between the government of Chiluba and The Post newspaper. The Post and its predecessor The Weekly Post - both under the editorship of M'membe - were great champions of Chiluba when he campaigned for the 1991 elections on an anti-corruption ticket against Kenneth Kaunda. However, The Post continued its watchdog role once Chiluba was elected and the newspaper demonstrated its independence by continuing to speak out against corruption in government.
On February 5 this year, while Parliament was considering the fate of M'membe and his two colleagues on the matter of contempt, Chiluba ordered the banning of that day's edition of the paper, adding that anybody in possession of it would be charged and prosecuted. The edition exposed a supposedly secret plan by the government to hold a referendum on the Constitution and hold local elections without adequate notice to the opposition parties. This was the first time since independence that a local publication was banned in Zambia.
M'membe and two of his colleagues were promptly arrested on the same day and charged with contravening the "Official Secrets Act" and of being in possession of a banned publication, namely, the February 5th edition of their own newspaper! Their arrest was initially thought to be linked to an order by Chiluba earlier in the month that police arrest the paper's editors and charge them with criminal libel for their stories about the President's parentage, birth place and alleged forgery of a school certificate.
All these stories were published within the context of a campaign by the Chiluba government to discredit and disqualify former president Kenneth Kaunda from running for president in elections scheduled for later this year. Last year, Zambia's Constitutional Review Commission recommended that anyone born outside Zambia should not be allowed to stand for President. Kaunda was born in Malawi. The Post later reported claims that Chiluba himself was not born in Zambia, and has since published further evidence in support of their claim that he was in fact born in Zaire.
These other charges against M'membe and other members of The Post have now been overshadowed by the debacle with Parliament. However, this debacle does nothing to hide the systematic attempt by Chiluba to silence his critics and violate the democratic principles that he championed when he ran for president in 1991.