On 21 November 2024, a self-styled “concerned citizen” accused me of hate speech after I criticised, in a local private newspaper, President Hakainde Hichilema’s continued abuse of state institutions to fix his critics and political opponents. Grace Mwanza, who looks to be in her 50s or even early 60s, sprung from obscurity to national attention when she appeared on the state-controlled Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) prime-time television news where she disclosed that “I have reported Sishuwa Sishuwa to police headquarters for the careless speech that he made today concerning the president. To me that is hate speech,” she said.
Under Zambian law, hate speech is a serious offence that refers to the act of expressing or showing hatred, ridicule, or contempt for persons because of race, tribe, place of origin or colour. Conviction for hate speech carries a two-year prison sentence. A day after Mwanza’s appearance on ZNBC TV, the police, with unusual swiftness, issued a press statement: “The Zambia Police Service wishes to inform the public that investigations have been instituted following a report lodged by Mrs. Grace Mwanza regarding sentiments allegedly attributed to Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa in The Mast Newspaper…dated Thursday November 21, 2024. Mrs Mwanza has expressed concerns that the statements allegedly made by Dr Sishuwa could have adverse implications for public peace and order.”
Ironically, this orchestrated call for the police to arrest me for my opinions proves or reinforces the very point I had made in the newspaper interview: how state institutions are being abused to fix people who express views that are critical of Hichilema’s leadership. This is the second time in about three years that I have been reported to the police by supporters of an incumbent president for expressing critical views on the political affairs of Zambia. The first was in April 2021 when a senior official in the Patriotic Front (PF) administration of Hichilema’s predecessor, President Edgar Lungu, asked the police to arrest me on a charge of sedition following an article I wrote in South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper on the worrying direction of political life ahead of that year’s general election. Emmanuel Mwamba, at the time Zambia’s ambassador to Ethiopia and permanent representative to the African Union, accused me of being sponsored by Hichilema, the main challenger to Lungu and leader of the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND).
Pressured by the PF, the ruling party in Zambia from 2011 to 2021, the management of the University of Zambia (UNZA), where I worked then, dissociated themselves from the article and disowned me as someone who is “currently not in active employment of the University of Zambia…[and whose] opinions and views in the mainstream and social media do not represent the official position of the University”. In a press release dated 22 April 2021, UNZA spokesperson Brendah Bukowa stated that “Management will not be party to the abuse of academic freedom to advance personal agendas while using the name of the University to give credence to such abuses.”
The university’s position drew a strong rebuke from the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), the premier social science research body on the continent founded in 1973. In a letter to then UNZA Vice-Chancellor Luke Mumba dated 29 April 2021, CODESRIA Executive Secretary Dr Godwin Murunga described the opinion piece as “a piece of scholarship whose contribution, broadly understood, fits within the overall meaning of the social responsibility of the intellectual. If the university should choose to pronounce itself on this matter”, he added, “it should laud this as evidence that a member of its community is undertaking important intellectual work in the public interest – just as it did when Dr Sishuwa received an award for stellar research…. We urge you, sir, to be at the vanguard of protecting the right of any and all academics in your community to do the intellectual work society depends on them to do. After all, we, of all people in society, know and understand that the calling of an intellectual is that of fascination with ideas, and this must include some bordering on heresy.…In this historic moment for Zambia, more of Dr Sishuwa’s ilk will only be a force for good, and we look upon you, as the intellectual leader of the University of Zambia, to ensure the university is the bastion for harnessing such voices”, wrote Murunga in a letter that was also copied to President Lungu.
Over a hundred academics from across Zambia, Africa, and the world also wrote a separate letter of protest to the Zambian government. “As historians and social scientists, who have studied and published in and about Zambia for many decades, we are extremely concerned that the threat of sedition charges is being used to silence the legitimate expression of belief by one of the country’s most prominent early career scholars. [Having]…documented the country’s prominent historical role in the political liberation of Southern Africa, and its pioneering role in constitutional democratisation, we are worried about the proposed use of an authoritarian tool such as the charge of sedition, and call for any consideration of such charges to be immediately and permanently dropped”, the signatories wrote on 30 April 2021. “We wholly reject”, they added, “the allegation that Dr Sishuwa is pursuing a “personal agenda” and call on the university to guarantee Dr Sishuwa’s continued employment and his right to academic freedom.”
This combined pressure from domestic and international actors forced the government to abandon its plans. However, the botched plot to arrest me highlighted the democratic backsliding that Zambia experienced under the PF between 2011 and 2021, one that Marja Hinfelaar, Lise Rakner, Nicolas van de Walle, and I were later able to record in scholarly detail. I voted for Hichilema in the hope that he would, among other things, repeal some repressive provisions in the Penal Code Act and the Public Order Act. I had also hoped that he would stop the abuse of legitimate provisions of the law that was characteristic of the Lungu years and further embark on institutional reforms to strengthen democratic institutions that were undermined during his [predecessor’s reign. These include the police, judiciary, parliament, electoral commission, and the civil service. Three years later, the situation has hardly changed. Like his predecessor, Hichilema, faced with the prospects of defeat in August 2026 owing to a faltering economy and a country deeply divided on ethnic-regional lines by his actions, has resorted to using legal mechanisms to further weaken the same institutions, most of which have been packed with loyalists.
Furthermore, co-optation, secured through patronage or appointments to government bodies, has weakened the power of civil society, bought the silence of previously critical academics, and compromised some private media outlets that had served as key platforms for dissent prior to the election. Opposition parties are hardly allowed to exercise the right to peaceful public assembly, protests against the government are effectively banned, and critics are regularly arrested – often for comments made on social media – to protect Hichilema’s thin skin and raise the cost of dissent. More repressive legislation to penalise public criticism of his leadership actions, control the use of social media, and regulate the activities of NGOs is either before parliament or in the pipeline. Hichilema’s authoritarian streak on the domestic front has been aided by his ability to paint a rosy picture of Zambia on the international stage.
Not all have been fooled, however. Major rights bodies such as the United Nations Human Rights Office, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have in the recent past issued damning reports about the human rights situation in Zambia. Domestically, the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops and Law Association of Zambia have regularly called out Hichilema’s authoritarian tendencies. Opposition parties and ordinary citizens have also expressed outrage at the lack of adequate ethnic diversity in Hichilema’s appointments to public institutions. Hichilema appears to see himself primarily as the leader of Zambians from one half of the country. Many people from Southern, Northwestern, and Western provinces believe they have been historically marginalised by their counterparts from the Eastern and the Bemba-speaking provinces of Northern, Luapula and Muchinga.
As was the case under Lungu, the binary between us and them has found expression in the skewed distribution of appointments to public office. As well as heading the executive, parliament and the judiciary, Zambians from Hichilema’s region dominate the key ministries, the leadership positions of the security services, the justice system, electoral commission, foreign service, and most senior posts in the civil service and parastatal bodies. Hichilema – the first president from his region since independence in 1964 – does not see anything wrong with this, believing he is simply addressing historical imbalances.
This is the wider context within which I have regularly expressed opinions and provided commentary on Zambia’s political affairs to local and international media. I consider myself to have a reasonable understanding of Zambia’s political history, having studied and taught it for almost 20 years. My doctoral thesis examined the country’s ethnic and populist politics since the 1950s, including the non-institutional factors that have shaped its political and economic development over the last 60 years. After graduating from the University of Oxford, I was appointed to academic appointments at UNZA, the University of Cape Town and, recently, Stellenbosch University. I have also published widely on Zambian political history in some of the leading African studies journals.
The insights of contemporary Zambian politics that I have acquired through academic training have been complemented by the fact that for all my life, I have lived and breathed much of the history that I teach and research. This is the knowledge and understanding that I have always brought to my public political commentaries. Since my views cannot find expression in the public media, I have relied on the private outlets, international media, and my account on X to give them voice.
Last week, The Mast, one of Zambia’s three main private newspapers, conducted an interview with me that led to a front-page news story of the print edition dated 21 November. In the interview, I criticised the continued politicisation of institutions such as the police and judiciary under Hichilema. It is the content of this criticism that Mwanza alleges constitute ‘hate speech’ against the President and for which she would like me to be arrested. A chronology of how we got to this latest incident serves to both highlight my analysis of Zambia’s politics today and vindicate my concerns about the politicisation of institutions.
21 November 2024
The Mast published the interview it conducted with me, which discusses three themes. The first is the selective application of the law by the Police on what I classified as ‘political offences’ under Hichilema. These include hate speech, seditious practices, and unlawful assembly. I showed the individuals arrested for these offences under Hichilema are mostly Bemba speakers and those who hail from the Eastern Province. I asked: “How is it possible that it is largely Bembas and Easterners who are law breakers or have the propensity to commit these crimes?”. I further demanded to know why the police have never arrested ethnic Zambians from the region that has historically voted for Hichilema even when they have committed similar offences against several prominent individuals such as Lusaka Catholic Archbishop Alick Banda, former president Edgar Lungu, opposition Socialist Party leader Fred M’membe, and other victims.
The second theme of the interview is the prolonged and unlawful detention of suspects arrested for hate speech, seditious practices, and unlawful assembly. I stated that, under Zambian law, the police are required to charge suspects with a known offence and either release them on bond or present them before court within 48 hours. Under Hichilema’s rule, the police have kept suspects in detention without charge for as long as two weeks. This is not only unlawful but also a violation of human rights. I showed that those on the receiving end of these injustices are Bemba speakers and individuals from the Eastern Province. I stated that because individuals from the region that has traditionally voted for President Hichilema have hardly been arrested for political offences, it is impossible to know if they too would have suffered the same fate.
The third theme of the interview is the denial of bail to those convicted for non-capital offences. I explained that Zambia operates a legal system where anyone convicted by a lower court such as the Magistrates’ Court can appeal against both the conviction and the sentence to a superior court. Once an appeal is filed, the convict is free to apply for bail before the magistrate who convicted them or, if unsuccessful, the High Court. Bail is issued at the discretion of the magistrate or judge and usually exercised towards the liberty of the individual. Before Hichilema, Zambia’s judges issued bail to those convicted for non-capital offences which enabled them to stay out of prison pending the determination of their appeal cases. I stated that, under Hichilema, judges – most of whom hail from the region that has historically voted for him – have rejected all the applications for bail made by those convicted and sentenced even after filing appeals in superior courts. I wondered why this was the case since the law has not changed and offences in question are bailable.
I showed that the individuals on the receiving end of these unsuccessful bail applications are mostly Bemba speakers and those from the Eastern Province. The only case where the convict is yet to lodge an application for bail involves Ronald Chitotela, a Bemba-speaking member of parliament in Luapula Province who was convicted for an offence committed against members of Hichilema’s party during the 2021 election. Chitotela was convicted in July but is yet to be sentenced four months later and consequently cannot apply for bail.
Based on these three themes – the constant arrest of people for political offences, the extended unlawful detention of those arrested before charging them, and the denial of bail to those who have appealed against their conviction for bailable offences – I argued that Hichilema was abusing the police and the courts. I further stated that since a clear pattern had emerged showing that most of those on the receiving end of these three injustices are Bemba speakers and individuals from the Eastern Province, Hichilema was persecuting these two-ethnic language groups. Having previously criticised the ill-treatment of members of Hichilema’s ethnic group, the Tonga speakers, when President Lungu was in office, I criticised President Hichilema’s oppression of these two ethnic-language groups. “I am very sad that President Hichilema and the UPND”, I said in the interview, “are using the police and the courts to persecute Bemba speakers and Zambians from the Eastern Province. This…is wrong and must stop immediately because it is dividing the country and has the potential to cause inter-ethnic conflict”. Since I come from the same region as the President, I concluded with a call on “those of us who come from the Zambezi region to speak out against these injustices because the Bembas and Easterners are being silenced through these arrests and convictions.”
I should pause here to discuss the ethnic cleavage structure of Zambia’s population that explain why I try to avert the flaring up of potential ethnic conflict by calling out ruling political elites who marginalise or ill-treat other groups.
The Bembas, found mostly in Northern, Luapula, Muchinga and Copperbelt provinces, are the largest ethnic-language group in Zambia, accounting for 41 percent of the national population. Zambians who trace their ethnic language roots from the Eastern Province make up at least 26.6 percent of the population. Together, Zambians from these two regions account for 67.6 percent of the total population. This number rises to 70.8 percent when the Mambwe, a distinct ethnic-language found in both Northern and Muchinga provinces that also speaks Bemba, are added. Most of the Bemba-speaking voters have historically supported the Patriotic Front since 2006. Majority voters in the Eastern Province started supporting the PF in 2015 when Lungu, who traced his ethnic roots there, replaced Michael Sata, a Bemba speaker, as the party’s leader. Following its electoral defeat in 2021, the PF is now the main opposition party.
Formed in 1998, the UPND’s support base has historically been drawn from Central and the three provinces where the Zambezi River passes: Southern, Western, Northwestern – hence the nickname the Zambezi region. Zambians who trace their ethnic origins from these four provinces – Lozi, Tonga, Luvale, Kaonde, and Lunda speakers plus those from tiny, clustered groups in Central Province – make up the remaining 30 percent of the national population. Under the PF, most appointments in the public sector were filled by Zambians from the Bemba-speaking and Eastern provinces, with many Zambians from the Zambezi region either marginalised or purged from the sector. Thus when Hichilema won power in 2021, many felt that some ethnic balancing was necessary to correct the undue dominance of Bemba speakers and easterners in the public service under the Lungu years.
However, some observers increasingly feel that President Hichilema has gone too far, to an extent that there has been a near complete inversion whereby yesterday’s victors have become today’s victims and vice versa. Sipho Phiri, a prominent local businessman who is himself from Eastern Province, expressed this growing sentiment recently when he declared in response to my interview that “Things are not well in Zambia and some tribal balancing was necessary after Edgar [Lungu] and crew had purged T’ [Tongas] and L’s [Lozis] from the system, but now that has flipped over into full blown tribalism the other way. It’s not right, everyone is whispering about it, but only SS [Sishuwa Sishuwa] states it out loud.”
Phiri’s argument that what Hichilema had initially presented as “tribal balancing…has flipped over into full blown tribalism the other way” represents the growing sentiment of many Bemba speakers and easterners who see themselves as grossly underrepresented in especially senior public sector positions, which they consider to be unduly dominated by Zambians from the Zambezi region. Any feelings of marginalisation among Bemba speakers and easterners, many of whom broke ranks and voted for Hichilema in 2021, have the potential to harm his electoral prospects and undermine both inter-ethnic harmony and national unity. This is the wider backdrop to my interview with The Mast.
Although I gave expression to the opinion that Hichilema is persecuting members of majority ethnic-language groups using the police and the courts, I was simply the messenger of a real sentiment that is increasingly and privately expressed by Bemba speakers and easterners. As former Attorney General of Zambia Abyudi Shonga, himself from the Eastern Province, stated in defence of my right to free speech, my only crime was to speak “loudly on what most would consider uncomfortable topics” and to “encourage discourse on issues that are hurting the country”.
Far from “expressing or showing hatred” for Hichilema or any group “because of race, tribe, place of origin or colour”, as alleged by Mwanza, I was using my research expertise to bring to public attention my concerns – shared by many – about what appears to be the politicisation of the police and the courts in their handling of political offences – not those relating to corruption. In doing so, I was seeking to address the underlying causes of societal tension as a way to reduce it. I believe it is both my right and patriotic duty to bring such concerns into the public eye. Article 20 of the Constitution of Zambia guarantees me and all other Zambians freedom of expression, that is to say freedom to hold opinions, receive ideas and impart or communicate ideas and information without interference. In genuine democracies, the threshold for charging anyone with hate speech is very high because constitutional democracies also protect freedom of speech.
The same day, 21 November, Mwanza reported me to the police, later appearing at ZNBC TV studios to repeat the assertions on national television without explaining how I, an ethnic Lozi, was guilty of tribalism since I come from the region that is receiving preferential treatment from Hichilema’s administration in relation to public sector appointments.
Meanwhile, two well-placed sources – one in the presidency and another in the Zambia Police Service – separately revealed to me that the scheme to have me arrested has been hatched from State House. “The complainant is a proxy of the President who is extremely offended by the newspaper interview story and is baying for your blood”, one of the sources confided in me. You must carefully watch your movements, even where you are, because the man is so angry with you that anything is possible”, the other source wrote.
Posts carrying my face started circulating on social media pages aligned to the ruling party claiming that I had been shot at and was nursing gun-shot wounds in a business deal gone bad: “Unconfirmed reports just received is that Sichuwa Sichuwa (sic) has survived death after unknown South African gangsters fired at him this morning. It is alleged that the gay spouse has been in hitted (sic) confrontation with his business partners over some financial misunderstanding. Wait for further information as we gather more details from our South Africa based sources”, the post read. The contents are all false but one of the earlier cited sources revealed that the post was deliberately “building a reason for eliminating you so that the people believe your death had nothing to do with them…but was a result of South Africa’s high crime rate.”
As darkness fell on 21 November, I wrote on X stating that “if you woke up to news of my forced disappearance or even death tomorrow, please ask the President of Zambia”.
22 November 2024
President Hichilema’s spokesperson Clayson Hamasaka released a statement in which he issued threats to The Mast for publishing the interview and attempted to build a profile for me as a treasonable element who is out to stir up anti-government sentiment and instigate mayhem and disorder. ‘Cowardly, Sishuwa, comfortably hiding behind the keyboard in South Africa, is trying to incite anarchy in Zambia in the name of promoting Fred M’membe’s socialism. We have all studied these -ISMS’”, he wrote. M’membe accused Hamasaka of deflecting attention from the issues I “raised”, noting that they “are real and being said by many other people. The best way of addressing the issues he has raised is not to arrest Dr Sishuwa for hate speech against mr Hichilema. It is to pay attention to the content of his criticism… [which] require[s] sober reflection from those in charge of our country, not the threats on his life that we are seeing from State House. It has become common for the UPND to attack…Dr Sishuwa by accusing him of being sponsored by me or a supporter of the Socialist Party, the same way the PF accused him of being sponsored by Mr Hichilema when the UPND were in opposition. Dr Sishuwa is neither a member nor supporter of the Socialist Party, and he has never been one”, M’membe wrote.
Another opposition leader Andyford Banda of the People’s Alliance for Change criticised the diversionary tactics of Hichilema’s spokesperson: “If there is a subject that politicians have actively suppressed over the years for their own benefit is the talk of tribalism and ethnicity. Politicians have advanced a school of thought that talking about tribalism creates divisions hence creating laws such as hate speech (sic) and the…Penal Code (Amendment) [Bill] of 2024 to suppress such kind of engagements for their own benefit. In fact, these laws seek to punish those speaking out and protect those practicing tribalism. Historically, ethnic conflicts have not be[en] caused by individuals who speak out but the politicians themselves who are the enablers and sponsors. I stand with Sishuwa, and I want to encourage the general populous to not be suppressed by politicians by actively engaging in this subject. Is tribalism alive in the UPND government? Yes, it is very much alive. When Sishuwa spoke against tribalism in PF it was nice and objective and not hate speech, but now you want to make him a persona na grata over common sense subjects. Let’s speak loudly against this vice” Banda wrote.
Meanwhile, the UPND’s Lusaka Province leadership hosted a press conference on the same day to condemn me over The Mast interview. The state-run ZNBC lined up several individuals from pro-Hichilema opposition parties and civic bodies and a professor of history at the University of Zambia Bizeck Phiri to condemn the interview. It became apparent that none of those condemning the story had read its contents because they all proffered no specific point of disagreement, choosing instead to speak in general terms built around the false narrative that I had expressed opposition to the prosecution of Lungu-era officials for corruption.
In the evening, the police announced that they were investigating me in response to Mwanza’s concerns. “In line with our mandate to ensure law and order, the police have commenced a through investigation to ascertain the circumstances surrounding this matter. We will engage all stakeholders, including The Mast Newspaper, to gather facts and determined whether any laws have been breached. We urge members of the public to remain calm and avoid speculative conclusions as investigations are underway”, read the statement.
23 November
Former president Lungu advised the government to abandon its plans to arrest me. Writing on his official Facebook page, Lungu asked his 1.4 million followers to “Kindly join me in asking the current government to “leave bo (Mr) Sishuwa alone”. I have just read the police statement that Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa is threatened with arrest and worse for critiquing my successor’s leadership in an interview with The Mast newspaper. When Dr Sishuwa criticised my leadership and accused me of persecuting Tongas during my presidency, I took the criticism in stride as part of a healthy political debate, fully believing that Zambia is a democracy”, Lungu wrote before providing a link to a January 2018 opinion piece in which I had criticised his marginalisation of Tongas in public sector life. He added: “As a former President and a citizen like you, I believe that “not every criticism requires police action”. Some debates require political responses, not further abuse at the brutal hand of state police as the situation currently is. My appeal is, leave bo Sishuwa and others with dissenting views like him alone, let democracy flourish”, Lungu concluded.
25 November
Oliver Amutike, a ruling party member of parliament who represents a rural constituency in my ethnic home area, joined the long list of people who have commented on the interview without reading and understanding its contents. Amutike issued a press statement in which he falsely attributed to me what I never said in the interview: “that President Hakainde Hichilema’s anti-corruption efforts are unfairly targeting individuals from Eastern and Bemba regions”. As already stated, I discussed political offences, not corruption, but the MP cannot know this because, like many others before him, he has evidently not read the story beyond the newspaper headline.
What next?
Police sources said Hichilema instructed them to press charges and ask South Africa to have me extradited to Zambia to stand charges. “We have told the President [that] there is no hate speech or any crime in your interview, but he has asked us to comb the Penal Code and find anything that we can then use to charge you. After that, the plan is to have you extradited to Zambia. The President says the new Minister of Home Affairs there [in South Africa] is an ally through Greg Mills, so they think it will be easy to bring you home”. It is also possible that the police might delay announcing the results of their investigations until I am next in Zambia and then arrest me and confiscate my travel documents.
My interview criticised Hichilema’s abuse of state institutions to deal with his critics and political opponents. What has happened since its publication has highlighted the first – the politicisation of the police, though they may yet have a chance to resist it. If I am arrested, I will be presented before the same courts that have shown susceptibility to executive influence. When I previously questioned the conduct of the judiciary in cases where Hichilema has an interest, the state institution took the unusual step of responding to my opinion piece through a press statement in which they accused me of ‘undermining the Judiciary’, claiming that criticism of judicial actions will ‘have a direct effect on investor confidence’, and encouraged the police to treat me as a person who is purposely ‘jeopardizing the integrity of the legal system’ and, by extension, an enemy of the State. The claim that criticism of judicial actions will ‘have a direct effect on investor confidence’ implies that any evidence of lack of integrity in the judicial system should be concealed from investors lest they desist from investing in Zambia. As a critic, I am not in the least concerned with protecting investors from any knowledge of corruption, but rather with protecting Zambians from corruption in government, which is all to the detriment of the welfare of the people.
Increasingly, I am no longer sure if it is President Hichilema who is abusing state institutions like the police and judiciary, or it is the elites in these institutions who have positioned them to be abused.
By Sishuwa Sishuwa
