Pardon Sinjela like you pardoned people like Kanene – UPND

The opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) has demanded that President Edgar Lungu pardons incarcerated journalist Derrick Sinjela in the same he pardoned musician, Clifford Dimba, better know as General Kanene.

Sinjela, a senior journalist and proprietor of Rainbow Newspaper, was convicted of contempt of court by the Supreme Court last year and sentenced to 18 months simple.

But the UPND says Sinjela deserves immediate release without unwarranted excuses.

In a statement released by UPND Media Director Ruth Dante, the party recollected that in 2014, Dimba known in music circles as General Kanene was convicted and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for defilement of a 14-year-old girl. Despite the seriousness of the matter, in 2015, President Edgar Lungu pardoned Kanene.

Dante wonders whether it was because he sang a praise political song for the PF.

“Ironically, Mr Lungu also rewarded ‘Kanene’ for his sexual assault case, by making him an Ambassador in the fight against gender violence (Women Rights),” she said.

“But even after Kanene assaulted his wife shortly after his release from prison and was also arrested for assaulting another woman at a pub, the special favours continued to protect him from possible prosecution.”

Dante says the UPND is aware that individual journalists, media bodies and the general citizenry in Zambia have made a clarion call to President Lungu for the possible pardon of Sinjela who had apologised for his contemptuous comment on the Savenda Vs Stanbic case.

She said if President Lungu intends to beat the private media into submission to the PF by paying a deaf ear to a matter of serious concerns affecting one of their own, he will not win the fight against the media as a whole.

“As a fourth estate, the media in Zambia shall not be silenced by the Government of the day or any other government that shall come after the fall of PF. President Lungu cannot beat the media into submission because there is no government world over that shall speak democracy without a free media” the UPND Media Director said.

“Why is the simple imprisonment of Mr Sinjela so troubling to Mr Lungu and PF? Bishop John Mambo who faced the same charge was pardoned and just fined. We are also alive to the fact that Chanoda Ngwira a known PF cadre was pardoned by the courts of law for a contemptuous case similar to the one Mr Sinjela committed.”

She said the incarceration of Sinjela, 55, only magnifies the dent, intimidation and threats on media freedoms in Zambia by the current government.

Dante wondered how government could omit Sinjela out of the 2,182 pardoned inmates to commemorate the May 25 African Freedom Day.