President Michael Sata has released 260 prisoners country-wide as part of this year’s independence celebrations.
This brings to 2,578 the total number of prisoners released this year by President Sata following the 2,318 who were released on May 25 as part of celebrations to mark Africa Freedom day.
President Sata says the move is meant to de-congest the highly crowded prison facilities in the country as well as re-integrate in-mates into society.
This is according to a statement released to ZANIS in Lusaka this evening by Special Assistant to the President for Press and Public Relations , George Chellah.
President Sata released the prisoners using powers vested in him in Article 59 (d) of the Constitution of Zambia and the order of release signed today.
Zambia celebrated her 48th independence anniversary this week on October 24 under the theme “celebrating 48 years of Independence with vision, hard work and unity”.
President Sata honoured 18 people including women who were married to freedom fighters during an investiture ceremony at State House in appreciation for their spirited heroism and legacy they contributed to the nation.
This is the second time this year that President Sata has set inmates free to the delight of Home Affairs Minister Edgar Lungu and Zambia Prison Service authorities including the ex-convicts themselves.
On 25 May 2012, during the African Freedom Day commemorations, the President pardoned a total of 2,318 prisoners who were held in different prisons across the country.
Out of that number, 318 convicts were released out of which seven were females at the Lusaka Central Prison while the rest 2,000 inmates came from other prisons dotted across the country.
The gesture to pardon the largest number of prisoners in the history of Zambia is an indication that President Sata’s Government was committed to the promotion of human rights and in line with the Patriotic Front party’s manifesto of turning the prisons into correctional service facilities.
ZANIS
crime levels will go up again. this chap sata does he learn from past experiences. gruesome murders, rape, defilements are on the way again. grade seven as a president is really a joke
Iwe chinangwa, do you think he would release hardcore criminals in the category you site your examples from? Ulapeepa petrol?
to start wit de president iz empowered 2 pardon prisoners en he dd it wihin de confines of de law biblicaly there z a room 4 forgiveness y pipo ar sent to jail z nt to see them die fro there its to reform en de number of months or yrs of dem to be there doez nt matter pliz validate yo condeminations.
Yes Mr President clear the lines for higher value prisoners.You see,i’m a firm believer in the adage that politicians should serve two terms:one in office and the other one in prison.
Pardoning of prisoners is not a solution to de-congest prisons. If the prisons are full then why even arrest people wasting time and money prosecuting them when they will be released anyway in the name of de-congesting. mudala this is not an issue you are old and suppose to be wise enough as to know that the solution to over crowding in these prisons is to build more prisons. pardoning of prisoners has never been done in good faith, we know of the bribery that goes into been pardoned. we know that most of them are political friends and relatives of the people in the corridors of power, Sata you are not smart as i thought but d*ll.
the population is growing , poverty levels are growing worsened by PF’s looming agriculture failure for 2013 which will just devastate the already suffering poor people who voted for you PF in the hope of having better lives but like everyone their going to be hit the hardest i just hope they;ve learnt their lesson not to trust slimy snakes with swift tongues full of venom of deciet and bitterness. and yet you still blame the colonial masters for your failures when up to now we still using their infrastructure. the prisons and the tallest building in Zambia Findeco house without lifts. its embarrassing to be Zambian at the moment.
Findeco house has new lifts. Try a ride. Works very well.
And Iris Kaingu, an innocent young lady couldn’t make the pardon list. She was convicted on the independence eve.
Innocent? Not in the position she was in the video. She looked guilty of something in that clip.
as citizens we are getting punnished nowdays thieves are many people are getting robbed in homes businesses and more criminals realesed to add to our problems .real lawlessness per zed with no vision
The long arm of the law should arrest and deport the Senegalese (and others like him) in Kitwe who is reported to have the police and law enforcement agents in his pocket. He has put a poor Zambian lady through hell (story on watchdog).
SATA IS NOT COMMITTED TO PROMOTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS COS HE DOES NOT ALLOW FREEDON OF SPEECH,PEOPLE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ASSEMBLE. WHILE HE RELEASES OTHERS HE IS IMPRISONING INNOCENT PEOPLE.HE IS FAKE. HIS MINISTERS ARE BUSY INTIMIDATING AND HARRASSING PEOPLE.RELEASING PRISONERS WITHOUT HAVING PROPER PROGRAMMES FOR THEM IN THE THIER COMMUNITIES DOES NOT WORK.GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO DO THEN THEY WILL NOT REOFFEND
IF
If the prisons are full, and cannot take any more inmates, If the government has no resources to build new prisons, If it is a waste of taxpayers’ money to extend the prisons, why not establish prisoner production camps where the inmates can be made to work and contribute meaningfully towards the nation’s economy?
This could be desirable If the prisoners do not reform, and have made it a habit to be perpetual criminals.
Thinking aloud!
The prisoners already contribute quite a lot toward the nation’s economy; have you noticed where much of the food is grown? In the open-air prisons. But even those are congested and have deplorable conditions in which inmates do not receive enough food to be healthy, where access to basic medical care is lacking or even denied, and where sanitation is a pipe dream.
The solution to this problem is to introduce sharia law and i guarantee all these vices of thefts rapes killings and any other will have no place per zed lets lobby now for stiffer penaltys to these vice
Please FREE Rose Mwasakandu. She is not a criminal.
anyakwawa a wisdom ya nsabwe yotsikila mmalaya kucoka mmutu ndzuwa likaomba.(your president has the wisdom of a louse that seeks solace in clothing leaving the head when you stand in the sun.) worst leader south of the equator if you ask me.Our respect for the Zambian president has ebbed down.
Why does this punk release prisoners any how in large numbers?is it because most criminals or prisoners are bembas? he wants his clan from muchinga and kasama to continue with robbery.
All of you bloggers above are fools who don;t mean well for our Country. #1, you are more educated than Sata, why are u not a President, or let alone CEO of any given Organization? #2 through 11, what have you done to better the lives of those Prisoners in Zambia, apart from su8pporting your tuma small tribal parties which you even know will never go anywhere in the History of Zambia? Think before you polomya with your dirty tongues. I’m not Bemba but its just a matter of using common sense which I know maybe not be so to all of you. Thanks ba President for that good gesture.
The solution isn’t to build more prisons; it’s to get people out of prisons and change the judicial system so that fewer of them come in, e.g. mediation rather than imprisonment. And to also work towards conditions (structural, environmental, social, economic) that are leading more people into crime who otherwise wouldn’t. Look at the U.S. with the highest incarceration rate in the world, they have more crime than Zambia. Look at Louisiana, the U.S. state with the highest incarceration rate, and look at the number of homicides in its cities. Imprisoning more people does not work, and it correlates with an increase in crime. It destroys the fabric of society.
Crime is not just aberrant behaviour of one person, it is the larger illness of the society itself. And imprisonment brutalizes people further, breaks up families, causes greater economic stress, and lowers the overall health of the public. Putting people in jail is like taking panado when you have malaria; it might relieve the headache, but it won’t cure the malaria, which will get worse the longer one waits to treat it. Going to prison can happen to anyone, to your brother or sister, your wife or husband, your child or father. There will always be brutal crimes, but those are the minority. Most of these people were in desperate circumstances or weren’t thinking ahead. Better to help them than to keep them in inhumane conditions.
This is a copycat move from the South African President who released prisoners a few months ago. Why can’t Sata be original in his presidency? Maybe it’s true he has no plans and goes about copying what other presidents are doing in other countries !!! He has no clue what has to do as president. This is quite hilarious but worrying….indeed.
@16, well spoken my brother. At least someone with a straight head and not seeing politics in everything. I keep telling people that everyone is a potential jail bird. You could be driving along and for some reason you did not see a pedestrian , knock them down and they are dead. Jailbird immediately, especially if it happens close to a pedestrian crossing. These things happen. I am sure the prisoners released had their situations revealed properly by the parole board before names were given to the head of state.
They are all bembas from Muchinga , we know that they are the ones who steal. They own nothing apart from their own stinking genitals. The president was also arrested for stealing everal times, he knows how horrible condtions are for his tribesmen
Ninenty percent of them are bemba criminals.