Deputy Inspector General of Police Dr Solomon Jere today told the Lusaka High court that the police service is not obliged to explain the reasons why it prevents opposition party public meetings because of national security concerns.
Dr Jere also admitted that police officers used “minimum force” on the UPND cadres who protested President Michael Sata’s suspension of three judges, saying the youths broke the law.
This is a matter before Lusaka High Court judge Evans Hamaundu where the Law Association of Zambia sued the Attorney General over bad and discriminatory provisions in the Public Order Act.
During continued examinations, Dr Jere was shown photos and video footage of former Lusaka Province police commissioner Charity Katanga when police stopped a protest by UPND cadres at the party secretariat in Lusaka last year.
Dr Jere said Katanga’s utterances meant that the police did not support the intention to demonstrate.
When Malambo asked Dr Jere if the words allow and support were equivalent in definition, judge Hamaundu chirped in and said what was important at that stage was not what the ordinary person understood by the semantics but what was in the authorities’ mind.
Dr Jere said the police disallowed the UPND’s Kanyama Rally in September last year, after initially sanctioning it, because the number of police officers to police the meeting was inadequate following the dispatch of most of them to the Copperbelt to police a soccer match between Zambia and Uganda.
“We don’t usually divulge the nature of security reasons for security reasons,” he said.
Dr Jere said this position was communicated to the UPND but that the party pressed ahead to hold the meeting and this compelled the police to dispatch a team of 200 police officers to seal the area of the intended rally.
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