Malawi Government has come out strongly to repudiate all development partners including USA and UK and other stakeholders for politicising the arrest of investigative journalist Gregory Gondwe and casting aspersions of the president chakwera’s character for his quest to promote freedom of the press in the country.
In a Press Statement released on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 and signed by Minister of Information and Digitization, Gospel Kazako who is a journalist himself and owns Zodiac Broadcasting Station (ZBS), government says that president Chakwera is committed to promotion of freedom of press in the country.
“Government repudiates all attempts and efforts by some quarters to politicize the incident by casting aspersions on the unimpeachable character of the State President, whose promotion on a free press is as unshakable as his promotion of independent police,” said Kazako in the statement in apparent response to UK and USA which were among the first to strongly condemn the arrest.
Kazako further says president Chakwera’ s and his government has a duty to respect the independence of police in carrying its duties therefore it has no mandate to interfere in its operations.
He says : government maintains the policy its policy and practice of non- interference in the operations of the MPs. This is because Government interference in police matters is prohibited by law,” said Kazako.
Gondwe was arrested yesterday in Blantyre on the issue that he revealed that Sattar has pocketed 1.4 billion kwacha from Attorney General. His IT gadgets and phones are still in the hands of police.
International community has condemned Chakwera government for interfering with the press freedom.
