Zambia’s president is guilty of intimidating opponents and silencing the media, according to the head of the Zambian Catholic bishops’ conference and other religious leaders in the east African country.
Describing the country as being at a crossroads as it faces “many challenges related to governance, the muzzling of people’s freedoms and human rights violations”, Lusaka’s Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu of Lusaka said in a joint statement with leaders of the Council of Churches of Zambia and the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia that he was saddened by the “blatant lack of political will” to tackle Zambia’s crisis.
“Only leadership that does not have the will of the people on its side, or thinks it does not have the will of the people on its side, uses state institutions to suppress that same will,” they said, expressing fears that President Edgar Lungu is “creating a new dictatorship”.
