(MISA/IFEX) – On Thursday 28 June 2001, Malawi Ombudsman Enock Chibwana awarded “Daily Times” acting chief reporter Mabvuto Banda and the late “Malawi News” editor Horace Somanje 30,000 Malawi Kwacha (approx. US$395) each for what he described as unlawful detention. Banda and Somanje, for whom the award has come too late following his death on […]
(MISA/IFEX) – On Thursday 28 June 2001, Malawi Ombudsman Enock Chibwana awarded “Daily Times” acting chief reporter Mabvuto Banda and the late “Malawi News” editor Horace Somanje 30,000 Malawi Kwacha (approx. US$395) each for what he described as unlawful detention.
Banda and Somanje, for whom the award has come too late following his death on Saturday 23 June, were arrested on 21 June 1999, following the publication of a “Malawi News” article that quoted opposition supporters as encouraging the army to take over the government.
The angry opposition supporters were urging the army to take over the government because they said they could not endure five more years under President Bakili Muluzi and the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF).
The chanting opposition supporters had gathered outside the High Court in Blantyre, where opposition alliance leaders Gwanda Chakuamba and Chakufwa Chihana were trying to put an injunction on the publication of the 15 June general election results following alleged widespread rigging.
Despite protests from both local and international media groups, the two journalists spent two days in jail, only to have their inciting mutiny charges dropped a year later. The two took the issue to the ombudsman for arbitration. In his hard-hitting ruling, Chibwana absolved the pair of any criminal wrong-doing.
“It is not a crime to report on events; it is absurd, backwardness and bad governance to arrest such neutral journalists,” he said.
Chibwana said that if anybody, be they the army or the police, thought that what the opposition supporters were doing amounted to a crime, they should have arrested them rather than the journalists.
The High Court incident took place in the full glare of the police, who have regional offices just metres away from the court premises. Scores of other journalists, both local and international, witnessed the incident and most of them reported on it.
“This means the two journalists were targeted and treated unfairly in order to be silenced, so that they should not perform their duties effectively,” he said.
Banda told MISA he was relieved that both the ombudsman and Malawi’s top prosecutor, the director of public prosecutions, have cleared them of any criminal wrong-doing.
“This should stand as a lesson to government organs that are bent to abuse their power on innocent journalists,” he said.
Somanje, who died on Saturday 23 June, was a fearless critic and essayist who tackled any subject without fear or favour, according to a statement from the Media Council of Malawi.
