“We want change, we want change,” echoed through the streets of Kitwe last week, in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. Scores of residents were protesting the arrest of Radio Icengelo station manager Father Bwayla against the backdrop of controversial by-elections, which officially sworn President Rupiah Banda into office on 2 November. The city centre came to a near halt as looters coalesced with peaceful demonstrators and police officers fired teargas and arrested more than 30 people.

Father Bwalya was arrested on three charges after he refused to shut down a special post-election radio programme he had been running for two weeks. He was accused of making statements that could cause hostile fractures between groups in the country, for alleging that the elections were fraudulent, and for saying that Banda was not elected legitimately. He was released the following day, however, he is due to be back in court on 27 November.

The riots of Kitwe were a manifestation of near omnipresent frustration in the region. Chansa Kabwela, Chairperson for the Press Freedom Committee of The Post, said to RAP 21, “The Copperbelt Province is a stronghold of the opposition Patriotic Front and their members are not happy about the outcome of the last election.” Further, urban areas, as a general trend, voted for change in reaction to the variance between poverty and economic growth. “Poverty levels still remain high despite the high levels of foreign investment in the country, favourable donor support and the growth that the economy has recorded in the last seven years - an average of 4.9 percent,” said Kabwela.

“So with the arrest of Father Bwalya, some of their members took to the streets to express a general dissatisfaction over the election. For others, they were expressing solidarity with Father Bwalya whose programmes have a huge following since most community stations in Zambia address issues affecting the people such as poverty, unemployment, poor health services, poor or lack of housing and poor education standards...[it] was a combination of factors but the bottom line is the general dissatisfaction by the people of the status quo,” said Kabwela.

Adding to the distress over the economy there has been a higher number of press freedom violations during the election period. The Media Institute for Southern Africa in Zambia (MISA-Zambia) recorded 16 violations between September and November, compared to six between January and August. Violations ranged from harassment, threats of legal suits and dismissals, threats to shut down media houses, forbidding journalists from attending political events such as rallies, and barring certain types of stories from being published or broadcast.

“The opposition political parties were not fairly covered by the public media and this gave the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) an unfair advantage as they enjoyed good extensive coverage,” said Kabwela. However, she did note that the coverage of the elections was generally good. MISA-Zambia also commended the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) for allowing journalists free access to election results at polling stations.

Still, the Members of Parliament (MPs) have spoken out against the media in reaction to the alleged media bias. On 13 November, the MPs adopted a report that calls for the regulation of media through the use of statutory instruments over self-regulation to stop journalists from publishing information that could incite violence. Brian Ntundu, MP for Gwembe constituency in the South of the country, said that some media organisations had degenerated to become a mouthpiece for political parties.

“The new government of President Banda has just started to work and therefore we cannot really say the government is doing something to protect the media and freedom. But if Father Bwalya’s arrest and the recent ban on live phone-in programmes on community radio stations is anything to go by, then the future does not look good,” warned Kabwela.

The Post, the country’s largest private newspaper, also fell into the snares of heightened press controls. On 27 September, the Lusaka High Court order the paper to stop publishing alleged calumny of Banda, who was then serving as the interim President after the death of former President Levy Mwanawasa. In the run-up to the elections, the paper was threatened with closure.

Since then, Kabwela said, “There have been no moves on The Post by the government yet but we are ready for any eventualities that might come our way. Ours is to inform the people and we shall always endeavour to tell the truth in a fair and balanced manner.”

Behind the current events in Zambia is an uncompleted Presidency that was built on strong business ambitions, albeit ones did not always bear benefits for the people, and relative press freedom compared to many of its neighbours. “However, we are seeing certain tendencies which are threatening to reverse those gains and that is worrying,” said Kabwela.

As this new chapter in Zambia unfolds, people and journalists are clearly not standing unbowed to watch the gains made over the years recoil. “We will continue defending media freedom because we feel that stifling the media is tantamount to stifling people’s right to express themselves, which is both a human and constitutional right. And once government regulates the media, that is as good as regulating the people who are the end users of the information that journalists gather,” said Kabwela.