Arrested UNZA lecturer out on bond after three days in detention for “insulting Lungu”

University of Zambia lecturer Dr Austin Mbozi who was arrested on Monday on allegations that he insulted President Edgar Lungu, was released on police bond after being charged with a different offence of “showing hatred, ridicule and contempt.”

His lawyer Mulambo Haimbe told News Diggers that it was illegal for the police to detain his client for three days without charging him.

“Dr Mbozi has finally been charged with the offence of showing hatred, ridicule or contempt because of race, tribe or origin of colour, contrary to section 70 of the Penal Code. He was released on Police bond today (yesterday) and is expected to appear in court on October 26, 2018,” said Haimbe.

On Monday police picked up and detained Dr Mbozi at Woodlands Police station over an article he wrote blaming President Lungu for Vespers Shimunzila’s death.

In the article, Dr Mbozi also highlighted the dangers of tribal voting, saying an outcome of such voting was having irresponsible leaders.

In a video recorded before Dr Mbozi, a lecturer in Philosophy of Good Governance, availed himself to police, which you can watch on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiaakiR1U4o&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop the lecturer admitted saying President Lungu was ultimately responsible for Vespers’ death.

Dr Mbozi, however, said there was a doctored version of his article which was circulating online.

“I wrote a statement criticising the PF regime over the killing of the UNZA student. Then, on the internet, another one is circulating saying that I have insulted the President and the police are looking for me. There is a criminal, a psychopath who cannot reason with me who must have written that and put there and said that I said it,” said Dr Mbozi.

“But it is true I did say that the President is ultimately responsible for the death, it is also true that I did say that tribal voting is the reason why people are being killed. People keep voting for tribes rather than merit, there is nothing criminal about that, it can just be annoying but it is not a criminal offence.”

Below is Dr Mbozi’s full article:

Mr President Edgar Lungu and your tribal voters, stop killing our hungry children

By Dr Austin Mbozi

To you Mr President
I do not know whether you personally or your hard core supporters, will take kindly to what I want to say here. But saying it gives me some inner healing after seeing you or your police kill our children for asking you to give them food. I live within UNZA. The whole Saturday night, I was hearing hungry UNZA students mourning their colleague near my house.

You say you have no money to feed them. But you yourself have eaten and you have money to buy bullets to kill hungry children. You may be right in saying that it is police and not you who killed the girl but even police did not intend to kill. Presidents ‘kill’, intentionally or not, by sending police to stop problems which they themselves cause. Even apartheid presidents and Adolf Hitler never personally killed any person. Vespers, the girl who was killed, was not making any public trouble on the road side at the time she was killed because she was killed from her room.

Advising you or warning you does not help. My conscious does not allow me to keep quiet when I live around people like you. After saying this, if at all your administration will arrest me for it, I need my own time to reflect on what kind [of] action I need to take in order to manage to co-exist with people like you, given that nature placed us in one country.

To you Vespers Shimunzhila

If I had a way of knowing that you voted for PF, I would have said you reaped the fruits of your foolishness. I had withdrawn from talking politics because I have decided that it is alright for voters of PF to suffer the consequences of their foolishness. I am not economically suffering myself.

But I suffer inside when non-PF voters also suffer. So here is how I can put it. If you voted for Michael Sata and Edgar Lungu, I have no kind words for you. You will only become a hero if you shall become a warning to your fellow young people that President Lungu is an ungrateful person. Youths of your generation should from today onwards learn a lesson that voting for irresponsible leaders is suicidal. The Germans suffered for voting for Adolf Hitler in 1933. But if you did not vote for PF, you are a shining example of shining intellectualism, a student who could distinguish irresponsible leaders from responsible ones. It hurts to lose people like you. You may not have heard me, but in 2011, I warned Zambians that Michael Sata was the worst of leaders that were standing in that election. And today, you can see for yourselves. Irresponsible leaders leave fellow irresponsible ones to succeed them. Sata left Edgar Lungu for you.

To you PF tribal voters

You killed Vespers. You have been voting for a regime that killed Vespers. So what profit have you achieved by the death of young Vespers who should have been your country compatriot long after Edgar Lungu is out of office? Have you or your tribe prospered because of this?

If I had my way, no PF voter should not even send condolences or attend Vespers’ funeral to offer crocodile tears.

The fact is that PF is not voted for because pf any leadership abilities. From its very foundation in its formation with Michael Sata, it was built around anti-Bantu Botatwe sentiments. The same groups that now vote for PF refused to vote for Anderson Mazoka, they were refused to support the Levy Mwanawasa administration and they still vow that they still never vote for presidents from specified regions.

I say this because it is useless to condemn symptoms of the problem such as the Edgar Lungu administration, corruption, brutality and so on when we know that the root cause is tribal voting. You may condemn and condemn, but the tribal voters will keep voting PF. In fact, President Edgar Lungu, for all his faults, is not inherently a tribalist. Street tribal voters are propping him up into power and enjoy the pride of having ‘their own’ in power.

Vespers, it is not the police who killed you. The police do commit these atrocities because they are frustrated by these corrupt leaders. These politicians steal money for our children’s food, send police to fight students while they pretend the battle is between police and students.

You have been killed by the tribal voters.

Vespers, you are not alone. Next, it could be me for saying the above. Or if not me, somebody else will suffer the same fate for simply speaking out. But tribal voters will keep voting.

Source: News Diggers