The Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC) has joined other 23 civil society organisations in recommending the review of the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Act in relation to issues of Freedom of Expression and freedom of the Press in Zambia. The submission was initiated by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia.
Speaking at the launch of the identified pieces of legislation that civil society want to be reviewed or totally taken out of the books of Law in Lusaka on Thursday 6th August, 2015, MISA-Zambia board member Father Freeborn Kibombwe, OMI, said that his organisation desires to see a Zambia that people will be free to express themselves and achieving an objective of decriminalising laws inimical to media freedom and free expression.
Fr. Kibombwe added that there is need to mount a strong advocacy campaign that would put government under pressure and succumb to demands of the people.
The Penal code which was put in the Zambian Law Statues by the British colonial government has successively been maintained despite the fact that many people have noted that they are repressive.
The Civil Society organisations have since submitted to the Zambia Law Development Commission and the country’s Ministry of Justice that laws which are hostile to media freedom and free expression should be reviewed and some taken off the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Act.
Source: Mwenya Mukuka, Communications Officer ZEC